Midnight City Series
by Vashti
Summary: 'Round here we talk just like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs.' Or, how John learns to live with the gift Bruce Wayne has given him. CONTAINS SPOILERS
1. All At Once

**Title:** All At Once  
**Series:** Midnight City  
**Fandom:** BtVS/The Dark Knight Rises  
**Character(s):** John Blake, Bruce Wayne, Xander Harris, OC Slayer, Selina Kyle  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** John needs help with the gift Mr. Wayne has given him. Wayne points him the right direction. Maybe.  
**Warning:** This fic contains spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises. If you haven't seen it, **DO NOT** read this story.  
**Length:** ~1940 words  
**Disclaimer:** Only the words are mine, and that's probably up for philosophical debate. Title from "All At Once" by Pete Yorn.  
**Notes:** Written for twistedshorts August 2012 fic-a-thon over on livejournal. It almost killed me, but it was a blast! Also, this dips into comic book territory for the Buffyverse b/c that's what worked best for the story. But I haven't gotten very far into the comics so if it feels like it's been painted with broad strokes...yeah...  
**AN2: **For more info, notes, ramblings about this series (I did a lot of rambling), check out my homepage on livejournal, August 85th. The master post for the series will also point you to the music I was listening to while writing this series, which I don't usually note.

* * *

All At Once  
by Vashti

The cave was a fantastic and strange find. If it had been given to him by anyone other than Bruce Wayne, or if Bruce Wayne were anyone other than the Batman, John would have had to question the sanity of the giver. Although, to tell the truth, there weren't that many people in or around Gotham who could afford to give anyone a cave, even if it were on the edge of their property.

The floor rising beneath his feet was a shock. One that his usually quick reflexes almost hadn't reacted to in time to keep him from falling. A boy living in on the streets in the roughest parts of Gotham didn't make it long if he couldn't think on his feet. But even the most nimble was sometimes caught flat-footed.

Then a screen began to warm and glow from deeper within the cave as John watched, transfixed. A glass case flicked on as if a switch had been flipped.

A switch. Him. He'd done this. Somehow... How? Why? What was Wayne getting at?

The questions swirled, circling and spinning, but never touching the fixed point that he wasn't yet ready to grasp hold of.

"Hello, John."

He stared at the screen, now fully warm, fully active, full of a familiar face that should be dead, a shining hank of dark brown hair flicking and moving in the corner of the display, as if the person it belonged to was speaking to someone also out of sight.

"I see you got my package..." Wayne smiled and the thing that had been sitting heavy on John's chest tightened. "...and that you followed the instructions."

For the first time, John really saw how Wayne had been going gray before he died. He knew from his research and police records that Wayne would have been 40 years old on his next birthday. Even here, in this video, smiling (before a war?) he looked older. Or maybe, in an age of miracle everything, it was simply strange to see a man who looked every inch his age. As much as John had known that Wayne wore a mask, the very one he saw in the mirror every day, he now saw how much more it had hidden.

"I'm sorry I can't be there to train you myself. It's better this way. For both of us. I can't go back into the dark for a third time, and you don't need my demons for your fuel. But it would be wrong of me to send you out there with nothing more than a bullet-proof vest and a nightstick. And you are going to go out there, aren't you, John?" he said with a sort of sad lift to his lips. His eyes, dark and clear, were shadowed beneath his brows despite the bright sunny day. (When had he taped this?)

John found himself giving the video a sharp nod, Wayne seeming to nod in return—one warrior to another.

"I do, however, have a contact that might be willing to take you on. The only thing is..." Wayne smiled, a real smile as he turned his head away, shaking it. He faced the camera again. "Before I became..._him_, I did a lot of traveling in the Far East. I met a man in Tibet who knew something about demons and having to tame them away from friends and family who couldn't understand. He knew I wasn't ready to listen to him yet, so he gave me a name and said when I was ready to be strong, I should find his friends. Maybe— That's not important.

"I looked them up for you..."

(When?) When, John wonders, would Wayne have had time to contact _anyone_ long enough to set up a training for him?

"...but for obvious reasons you'll have to contact them yourself."

_"Bruce, is this is your idea of a 'brief word?' Because the way you're going we'll be ate for the opera. I hate to waste tickets I actually paid for, so please give your little officer friend whatever it is you called him for and hang up."_

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you and Selina have some history, Officer Blake."

John's jaw had to be somewhere near his navel, his heart trying to climb out his throat.

"My mother used to tell me not to let my mouth hang open lest something fly in."

"You're alive."

Wayne's smile widened. "For the first time in a long time."

_"Tick tick tick tick, Bruce."_

"But not for much longer if I don't finish up here. There'll be time later-"

_"Yes, later. _After_ the opera, or Alfred and I are going without you."_

Smiling still (such a strange expression on Wayne's face that John can't seem to pick his jaw up from his chest) Wayne turns to follow Selina with his eyes before looking into the camera again. Now his eyes were down, looking at something unseen. John guessed a keyboard. A breeze lifted Wayne's hair and sent it floating.

"I've sent you the information I have," Wayne said, looking up and pushing hair out of his eyes. "I didn't do as good a job of keeping up with it or my initial contact as I should have. I didn't think I'd ever need to. As I said, unfortunately, that means you'll have to make the introductions yourself. My impression of them is that they'll agree to help you if explain your situation."

"Explain—"

Wayne nodded. "Hero, new to the business, getting by on street smarts, and desperate need of training against the forces of evil and their regular need to cause mayhem." Gaze turning quizzical, he said, "You don't have a problem with strong female figures, do you?"

If John were honest, he had some trouble with authority, period, but gender had never mattered on way or the other. "Not particularly."

"Got a problem if one of them wipes the floor with you?"

"So long as she'll teach me how she did it."

Wayne nodded again. "Remember that. It'll probably be a good motto to live by for a while." His lips turned up in a small, closed-mouth smile. "Good luck, John. Don't forget, always be careful to wear a mask."

"Wait!" he shouted, the sound bouncing and ringing in the cave loud enough to make Wayne wince. "That's it? Dial a number, say I need help, and try not to let my ego get bruised when I get beat up by a girl?"

Wayne shrugged. "Basically. Like I said, I haven't been keeping up with this particular contact. Ah, one thing that might help. Tell them Oz sent you."

Shaking his head, John blinked. "What, the Great and Powerful?"

_"No, you idiot! Just do what someone tells you for once so I can see _Tosca_!"_

John smirked. "Are you sure that was a good idea?"

Laughing, Wayne killed the connection.

Crossing the narrow, damp catwalk to the glowing computer screen, John felt the thing that had been sitting on his chest ease. Information glowed cold and unrepentant before him. The date stamps—date created and date modified—were almost a decade apart, with the most recent date occurring just before Gotham's occupation. The rest of the computer area was dull, its features almost indistinguishable in the near-black of the cave. Until he rested his hand on the console.

Pushing aside more questions and a fervent wish for an owner's manual, he found what passed for a mouse and clicked on the first phone number.

The automated operator was sorry to inform him that the number no longer existed. Was he sure he had dialed correctly?

The second number rang to nowhere.

The third number was for someplace in Europe. He considered it, then skipped to the alternate on the West Coast. Someone picked up promptly after two rings. _"Good morning, Wolfram & Hart, Las Vegas branch,"_ a pleasant female voice said._ "How may I direct your call?"_

"Um, I'm...looking for someone named Buffy Ann Summers?"

_"Here?!"_

"Wrong number?"

_"Ha!"_

But since he had her on the phone... "You wouldn't happen to know how to reach her, would you?"

_"Even if I did,"_ she said, both pleasantness and shock replaced with something that had John reaching for his hip, _"whyever would I tell you?"_

"Never mind then. Thank you. For your help." Some instinct had him hanging up before she could reply.

So it was back to the number in Europe. John let it ring longer than he might have otherwise, not sure what time it would be wherever he was calling.

The line picked up, but instead of a disembodied voice, a young, golden-skinned woman with a short boyish haircut, wearing a tank top and something short enough to show a lot of thigh filled the left half of the screen. _"Um, hey? Can I help you?"_

"I hope so. I'm looking for a Buffy Ann Summ-"

_"XANDER!"_

"No, I'm pretty sure the person I'm looking for goes by the name Buffy. Or did." He glanced at the open file on the right side of the screen. "My contact information is old."

_"How do you know Buffy?"_ There was a sudden hardness to her that brought back Wayne's words. His first instinct was to ruffle the young woman's hair. Was this 'strong female authority type' Wayne was warning him about? This could be a problem.

"Um, I don't. I know someone who knows Ms. Summers."

_"Who?"_

"Guy named Oz." At the hesitation in her stance, he added, "I met him a few years back in Tibet. More than a few years." It wasn't exactly true, but if it got him what he needed...

_"XANDER!"_ But the young woman's stance had softened considerably.

A tall, man slid into view, standing at right-angles to the camera. _"What? What's wrong? You've got phone duty. Are the big bads calling in Apocalypses now? 'Cause that would really make our lives a lot easier if they were."_

_"No. This guy. He's looking for Buffy and he knows Oz."_

The man turned, revealing a battle-hardened face and an eye-patch that didn't match his lighthearted tone. Until he spoke to John. _"How'd you meet Oz and why're you looking for Buffy."_

"I met Oz in Tibet. I was trying to fight my demons on my own, but when Oz offered to help I wasn't ready to listen," John said, appropriating Wayne's story as his own. It was close enough. "He told me when I was ready to be strong I should find a girl named Buffy and have her teach me how."

_"How long ago was this?"_

"A while."

_"Then how'd you get this number?"_

"Serious detective work. I promise it wasn't easy to find," or so John assumed.

The man, Xander, studied him for a while. _"You've gotta understand, buddy, Buffy doesn't just take on trainees. That's not how we work here. Especially not dudes."_

"But I need help, and right now you're the best option I've got."

_"Sorry, buddy, but we can't help you."_

"You have to."

Xander's stance tightened, the resolve that had gotten him through whatever had cost him his eye coming to the fore. _"We don't _have _to do anything. Sarah, term-"_

"You don't understand," John interjected. "It's not just for me. This city needs me to protect them. And I need Buffy to show me how."

_"What kind of Chosen One are you that an entire city's resting on your shoulders?"_

John stepped out of the way of the camera, knowing that the prowler, _his_ prowler, was within its line of sight. "I'm Batman."

Fin[ite]


	2. Filter

**Title:** Filter  
**Characters:** John Blake, Buffy Summers  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** "Get off your high horse, take off your pity party party hat and get with the program!"  
**Length:** ~1150 words

* * *

Buffy whacked John on the butt with the flat of her sword. Again.

"Hey!"

"I told you to step it up, Officer Grim-Face. You think your A-game is enough to make it on the gritty streets of Prague?"

He shot an unabashed glare in the Slayer's direction. "Gotham. I work Gotham."

"Nooo, right now a giggly group of four teenage girls and their twenty-two year old team leader work Gotham. And the minute we can find a Watcher who isn't a wuss, one of those'll be there, too." She pointed her sword at him. "You, Captain Grim, work Prague. Assuming you ever get out of this training room, through the castle gates and out into the countryside. Then we can talk Prague."

Exhausted from the long hours of daily training that seemed increasingly pointless, and frustrated with both his lack of progress and Buffy's never ending quips, John dropped his sword and walked out, grabbing a towel from the rack near the open door.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

"You can't keep me here," he called out over his shoulder. John was soon swallowed up in the relative darkness of its thick stone walls. He'd miss the dark passageways, he decided. The training house had been converted from one of the many castles that dotted the Czech Republic. Prague, the nearest city and capital of the small Eastern European nation, was some miles away.

Behind him, John heard the thud-slap of Buffy's boots on the hardwood floors. He remembered his incredulity when he first realized she'd be training him in them. But he was used to them now—used to being sent sprawling across the floor by them, used to them having a better grip on slick hardwood and unforgiving stone than his sneakers did, used to Buffy being as stable in them as if she were barefoot.

He ignored them. What was she going to do, spank him with the sword? She'd been doing plenty of that all morning. John checked his watch. Yes, still morning...barely.

"Hey!"

He ignored her,

"I said hey!"

and kept walking. He'd catch the next flight, kick the junior slayers out of his city and get to work. This was a stupid idea, and if he ever heard from Wayne again-

"Ow!" John spun around, hand going to the place where he'd been hit. "What the-" He looked down trying to identify what he'd been hit with. "Did you hit me the sword?!"

"Just the hilt, you wiener!" Standing near the mouth of hallway, half thrown into shadows, Buffy wiggled the broken off blade. She had it clenched between her forefinger and thumb, like it was something distasteful. "Besides...crappy workmanship. I'll need to talk to Xander about our supplier if this is our standard issue stuff. But you! What is _wrong_ with you? Did you forget that you came looking for _me_, not the other way around, pal. And now you're walking out?"

John walked back toward her. Their raised voices were making his new headache worse.

"Well, I guess now you're walking back in. Wow, that was easy. You've really got to work on that flip-flop thing. It's bad enough when presidential candidates do it. I don't like it in my recruits."

Scowling, John went past her to stand in the brightly lit training room. "No, I'm not 'walking back in'. And I'm not one of your recruits. I'm taking the next flight out of Prague back to Gotham."

Buffy cocked her hip, one hand on it and the other pointing toward his chest. "Um, is it just me, or are you not ready yet?"

"I don't fight demons and vampires in Gotham, Buffy."

"No, you have the insane clown posse, guys who wear sacks over their heads, and a plant lady that makes crazy cat ladies look sane. Yeah, totally no comparison there. Like, not at all."

"Look, Buffy-"

"No, you look, John. If you're gonna keep going at this all half, then, yeah, do us the huge favor and leave. Because, y'know what, we have bent over _backwards_ for you. I've sent one of my junior teams to _your_ non-demon infested city to watch out for it until you can not get yourself killed. Which, by the way, your little cave hangout? Totally lame. The girls are _not_ amused by the bat guano décor and dead toys."

It was John's first time hearing that the cave hadn't been working for the group Buffy had sent to Gotham in his stead, but he filed the attending questions away for later. Buffy was on a roll.

"I moved part of my core group to the Czech Republic to protect your future anonymity. I am training you _myself_... Do you know how much training I got before my Watcher sent me to kill a nest of vampires trying to take over my town? What, no? Good answer, because I'm not sure either, seeing as how he was _murdered_ by vamps before he could do much more than tell me I was the Chosen One and hand me a stake. Then the guy was _dead_ and I had to figure it out for myself. And do you know what I had to fall back on? Cheerleading! What do you have to fall back on, Detective Grim? Freaking Police Academy training. Which is great, I'm sure, but it isn't going to help you against an insane clown posse. Otherwise, you wouldn't have needed the Batman in the first place.

"So get off your high horse, take off your pity party party hat and get with the program! If you want to be dead in a month...there's the door, don't let me hit you on your way out. Again. But if you want to get some work done, learn to think out of your flashing-blue-lights box, then let's go. Six months of playing babysitter has stretched my patience just a little thin."

The silence rang painfully in John's ears. Though they'd been working steadily for hours, John noticed that Buffy had hardly broken a sweat. Neither, John realized, had he.

"Who told you to be my babysitter?" he asked when he could hear again.

"Um, duh, _you_ did, idiot. Remember...'I'm looking for a Buffy Ann Summers. Oz said I should find her when I was ready to be strong'? Remember that? Now are you ready to do something, or are you going to keep pretending that your non-existent badge and honorary nightsticks are going to keep the Gotham's nightmares away?

"Yes, ma'am." John pulled the dry towel from his neck, wincing as it rasped against his skin. He reached for his sword.

Buffy huffed, arms crossing over her chest. " 'Yes, ma'am' what? I don't do this paramilitary, special forces-speak. That's Xander's department.

Lips twitching as he tried to not to smile, he raised his sword in salute. "I'm ready to get some work done."

Fin[ite]


	3. Transitions

**Title:** Transitions (or Tipsy Turvy Sky)  
**Characters:** John Blake, Buffy Summers  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** She no longer treats him like a visitor, but like John belonged.  
**Length:** ~1540 words

* * *

The first time John got the drop on Buffy, effectively bringing the fight that had taken them all over the ground floor of the castle to a standstill, the Slayer laughed despite her face pressed into the floor.

Using a show of strength John hadn't fully comprehended until the moment he went flying across the room, she pushed up and forward. He went flying from her shoulders into a wall several feet away. She landed on her back.

And she laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. When he finished giving his ribs a mental once-over and clearing the cobwebs to make sure the room wouldn't tilt when he stood, he checked on Buffy. No one talked to him about it, but he could see the way the others sometimes gave her the kid-glove treatment. And she'd been laughing a long time. At home that was usually a bad sign.

Indeed, Buffy was still lying on the floor when he made his way to her, although her laughter had been reduced to sporadic chuckles. Spying him standing above her sent Buffy curling into herself as a fit of giggles overtook her. John found himself standing with his hands on his hips, waiting for her to get over herself.

She did. Eventually. "Help me up," she said, most of the laughter gone from her voice. Wary, John did just that, but the only thing she surprised him with was a bright, beautiful smile that creased the corners of her eyes and smoothed the tension from her brow. John had to stomp on the urge to touch her, suddenly beautiful, cheek.

"You finally got it, Detective Grumpy-Pants." Buffy gently punched his shoulder. "You thunk out of the box, you used your knowledge of the terrain to your advantage, and you got the drop on the guy! I'm kinda proud. I thought this day would never come! How's it feel to not suck?"

John shrugged, but found a smile tugging at his lips. "Not bad."

Buffy snorted. "Not bad, he says. Not bad. Oh, hey, what was that leap-y, climb-y thing you did to get out of the upper window? Because that was the beginning of all my joy right there."

"Oh, I, uh..." He could feel himself blushing. John had briefly flirted with gymnastics as a child, but St. Swithens hadn't had the money to fund even a casual interest in the sport. A training school had given them a grant for a season when he'd been ten, and John had gone to every session, but after that... After that the only apparatus he'd had were a broken down jungle gym and, later, chasing down criminals with a penchant for trying to go over walls or up fire-escapes. "You chase bad guys in lots of weird places in Gotham."

"Uh huh, sure. Whatevs. You don't have to tell me if you don't want." Buffy shrugged, but John could see she was still curious. "My cheerleading skills came in random handy, too, especially when I first started. Those high-kicks, not just for flashing the football players anymore." She walked away from him, toward a nook carved out of the stone wall. Water bottles were lined up on a shelf, and above them a built-in rod held several fluffy towels. Buffy wrapped a towel around her neck then grabbed one of the waters. She cracked the seal but didn't drink. "Anyway, we'll move you on to more gymnastics training than we had been giving you, step up your strength and endurance training, and then we'll kick you over to Oz and you can go-"

"Wait, what?"

John watched as she mentally backtracked, taking a swallow of her water as she did so. He approached, reaching for a towel and water himself.

Buffy shook her head. "Sorry, Captain Testy, you'll have to tell me which part of that you weren't too keen on. Was it the high-kicks not being for football players any more? Boys always get a little sad when I bring that up. Even Andrew. Although, maybe not for the same reasons as everyone else." She shrugged, taking another pull from her water bottle. Eyes wide, she gestured to him with her chin.

The more he'd loosened up and accepted that he couldn't solely rely on what he'd known as a cop, the more casual their relationship had become. John could tell that there were still levels of interpersonal interaction they had yet to cross, but she related to him the way she did with the other slayers. She no longer treated him like a long-term visitor, but like John belonged in the castle with the rest of the core group that had come with her to the Czech Republic. He still wasn't sure whether finding out that the quips were part of what she did, and had little to do with her personal feelings about him, was a good or bad thing.

John took a few healthy pulls of his own water bottle before answering. "What's this about 'kick you over to Oz'? The gymnastics training and endurance training I get, although I wonder why we didn't do more of that before-"

"A. I didn't know you had rubber-arms in you, and (2) if you couldn't get past this then why should I teach you how to die slower?" She shrugged.

"Okay." Maybe, but... "Okay. But I don't understand why I'm going to see Oz. He sent me to you."

All business, Buffy nodded. "Great first step, but now that you've broken out of that coffin-shaped flashing blue box you liked so much, you're almost done here. Which is a shame because you were kinda fun when you got out of that shirt and tie."

John stuffed her wistful tone into the place where he was hiding all the questions he'd been storing up over the eight months of his training with the Slayer. "That doesn't explain Oz."

"Thing is, when a slayer goes out at night to beat up demons she is literally beating up demons. The catharsis factor can be really high. But when Batman goes out, he gets weirdos and maniacal freaks bent on destruction." Shaking her head, she pointed at him with the water bottle. "It's not the same. So you've gotta learn to deal with your demons some other way."

"Why not learn how to do that here? Look, I'm tired of waiting. Not that all of this hasn't been necessary, but I need to get back to my city."

Buffy nodded. "Trust me, I hear you. I'm anxious to get my girls and their Watcher back, too. But this is something you gotta get a grip on first. You don't and..." She waved her arm in the general direction of the wider world. "It's not pretty. Look up Faith's file, or mine, or Willow's...who used to be the nicest, sweetest person you ever met before she got into the hero business.

"The truth is slayers aren't all that great at dealing with their issues. I think it's a pre-req or something, so it's not the kinda help we can help you with. The only person that I know that's got it halfway figured out is Oz. Plus, he keeps a mighty good secret. So you finish up here with us, then go chat with Oz, then I give your benefactor a signed note clearing you for duty, soldier."

"Benefactor?"

"Um, yeah? The mystery person that's been checking on your progress and insisted on funding the Gotham team while they're there? You knew about him or her or it. Right? Popped up about three months after you did?"

His surprise was clearly making her agitated, so he nodded, clearing his expression. "Absolutely. I didn't think he'd contact you, though. He never mentioned it." Heck, Wayne hadn't spoken to him at all.

Eying him, Buffy shrugged. "Not me personally, but there are channels and some of them flow through me. Would you rather we didn't report on your progress? We all just assumed-"

"No, no it's fine. Like I said, I wasn't expecting to hear from him until I got back."

She nodded, seeming to take his explanation at face value. "Although, knowing that Batman's got backers explains so much." Buffy polished off the bottle then tossed it over John's head into the garbage can. "All right then..."

John's eyes caught the movement of Buffy's towel as he turned away from her, but didn't register it for what it was.

"...let's hit the showers."

Until the swat on his butt had him jumping in the air. He spun around.

"Omigosh!" Buffy's hands covered her mouth. She lowered her hands. "I am so sorry! I meant to get your side, but you turned! Really fast." She covered her face. "Don't tell Dawn!"

He didn't know who Dawn was, but he promised himself to find out. Glowering, he said, "Showers, Slayer."

Blushing furiously, from both embarrassment and poorly concealed laughter it seemed to John, Buffy uncovered her face and nodded.

John stepped to the side as she approached. "Nuh uh, you first."

"Sir, yes, sir!" She saluted as she passed, that broad grin back on her face.

He almost forgave her.

Fin[ite]

* * *

**AN3**: Special thanks to everyone at twistedshorts on livejournal for their, ahem, insight on Buffy's and John's interaction :)


	4. They Keep Calling

**Title:** They Keep Calling  
**Characters:** Buffy Summers, OC Slayer, John Blake  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** "Me. I'm going with you." "What the heck for?" "You need me."  
**Length:** ~1310 words

* * *

Head tilted to one side, Buffy frowned down at the mini-slayer standing in front of her, a duffel slung over one shoulder and a pack roll stuffed under her other arm. "Um, hi…Sarah, right?"

"Yes, ma'am." Her short red-brown hair was plastered against her head from the humidity, the fringe almost concealing both of her dark, canted eyes.

"Not with the 'ma'am', thank you. Anyway, uh, what're you doing here? John's kinda got a flight to catch, soon's the car gets here."

Sarah nodded. "I know. I want to go with him." Using her chin, she pointed at John standing over his own duffel and pack roll on the far side of the circular drive, too far away to hear them.

Buffy turned to glance at John, inadvertently catching his eye. He too gestured with his chin—at Sarah. Buffy shook her head.

She turned back to the mini-slayer. "If he has lain a hand on you, I swear—"

Sarah quickly raised her hands, dropping the pack roll in the process. "No! No, nothing like that! We hardly talk outside of training."

"But you want to go with him."

The girl nodded.

"To Tibet."

She nodded again.

Buffy gave her a quick once over again, noting the girl's warm complexion. "You're not Tibetan, are you?"

"Thai by heritage, Nevadan by birth."

"Oh. Okay. Um, and so you want to go with Captain Crab-face why?"

"I don't know, I just…want to?

Buffy gently helped the girl out of her duffel, letting it drop to the hot driveway as she placed her hands on her shoulders. "Sweetie, I know John's cute. I've been watching him sweat out t-shirts for almost a year so I understand why you're crushing him, but following him to Tibet isn't the way to get a guy's attention. If it didn't work for Felicity—"

"Who?"

"—and she got a whole TV show out of it, then it's not going to work for you. Trust me on this. I'm not only the oldest Slayer, I'm also the one with the worst guy-track record."

"Yeah, I know."

"You know?"

"Um, yeah?"

Buffy scowled, then remembered that the conversation wasn't about her love life, but Sarah's. "Sweetie, look, you're a slayer...he's a vigilante. These are two non-mixy things. Trust me. Been there, done that, got the axe to prove it."

"Axe?"

"Long story."

"Oookay."

"So do you understand why you can't go now?"

"No, not really?"

Buffy's hands dropped as she slumped. "I was crappy at trying to talk Dawn out of bad relationships, too."

"I'm not interested in a relationship with John. Not like that."

"Huh? You're not? Then why do you want to go to Tibet with him."

"_I don't know." _ Sarah threw her hands up. "I wish I did. I just know…I just know that I'm supposed to go with him. I have to go with him," she said softly, looking in John's direction.

Buffy turned, too. She knew he couldn't hear them, but he was still watching them intently. "Batman works alone, Sarah." She turned to the mini-slayer. "You know that, right?"

"That's what they said about slayers, too. And then you went and got friends and made a team and now you're the oldest slayer ever. You're a living legend."

"Yeah, well..." Buffy wasn't sure whether to be chagrined to have her life used against her, or embarrassed that the mini-slayers had been paying attention.

"He needs me."

"But he may not want you, Sweetie. He doesn't fight the powers of darkness. Or, okay, yeah he does, but his enemies are strictly human and strictly human falls outside of our..." She made two wide circles with her hands. "Outside that. We don't fight monstrous people, we fight monsters. If you go with him you can't help him."

"But I think I can."

Buffy frowned. "How?"

_"Could you ladies wrap this up? I've got a flight to catch, and you're coming right back!"_

"Hold your horse, Detective Crabby!" Buffy never took her eyes off Sarah. "How?" she asked again.

Sarah shifted. "Um, well, I am his gymnastics coach. And I'm better with computers than he is. Which? The girls in Gotham said his cave is full of computers, even if they're all dead. And I...I kinda don't go out on patrol or missions anyway," she added with a shrug. "So it actually wouldn't be much of a change."

"You don't go out?"

"Not usually. It just...works out that way."

The car taking them to the airport swung around the circular drive, stopping in front of John. _"Ladies-!_"

Buffy's head snapped around. "Chill, Blake!" She turned to Sarah, feeling more urgent. "When did you know? Are you sure about this?"

Sarah nodded. "Pretty sure. And I've known for a while. Not that first day when I picked up his call, but some time before we left Scotland."

Buffy's hands were on Sarah's shoulders again. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

Squealing, the girl wrapped her arms around Buffy's waist. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

"Yeah, well..." Buffy pealed the mini-slayer from her waist. "This doesn't explain why you need to go to _Tibet_ with him. Why not just meet Officer Crab-man in Gotham when he goes back there? He isn't going to need protection when he's with Oz. And Oz is the- Hey, what's with the blushing when I mention Oz?"

"Oh, um...well..."

"You are totally fangirling Oz, aren't you."

"Well I'm always hanging around the senior team hearing all these stories about Sunnydale and college and all the early slay-days, and Oz is in a lot of them... And he sounds pretty cool."

Buffy ignored the nearly indecipherable _And kinda cute_ that came after. She dropped her head back, praying to someone for strength. Doing this once with Dawn had been bad enough. "Okay, look...I'm giving you permission to try out for the part of John's sidekick, but in the end its his decision. He's not part of the slayer family, although he's welcome to come to family reunions if he'll bring the steak-sauce. Basically? I have no influence. If he says no, then it's no, and we'll see about getting you in the field and away from the boring old people with their boring old stories. With that in mind, you have the trip to Tibet-"

Sarah squealed again.

"—to convince him to take you on. Keep in mind, we have no idea how long he's gonna be there. Once he gets on that plane, he's out of slayer hands. If Oz declares him fit for service when he steps foot on the tarmac, then that's it. If John's gotta stay for another 10 months—please, God, no—then he's staying for another 10 months. In that time, you've gotta convince him to keep you. You're eighteen, right?"

Watching Sarah nod her head off—"Over!"—Buffy could only wonder if she'd made a good decision. She took a deep breath. "C'mon, before the Detective pitches a hissy."

She grabbed Sarah's duffel. Delighted, Sarah picked up her pack roll and threw it over her shoulder. She all but skipped to the car. John took the roll from her and put it next to his things in the trunk. He took the duffel from Buffy, grunting under the weight without comment.

Until he climbed into the towncar after them. He met Buffy's eyes over Sarah's head as the mini-slayer leaned forward to give their driver directions in accented, but decent, Czech. "So you're coming with me? I thought you were going back to Scotland."

Buffy nodded. "I am."

"So what's with the extra luggage? Did I not pack enough?"

"She's going with you."

"Who's 'she'?"

Sarah turned around. "Me. I'm going with you."

"What the heck for?"

"You need me."

Fin[ite]


	5. Lights

**Title:** Lights  
**Characters:** John Blake, Oz, OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** The final piece of the puzzle is in Tibet.  
**Length:** ~2740 words

* * *

John and Sarah argued almost the entire way to Tibet. It was a long flight—a long series of them, actually. They were two secrets traveling via international commercial airliners, after all. Sure it was first class all the way, so they actually had privacy for their running argument, but that didn't mean the busybody in 4A wasn't reading their lips instead of her in-flight magazine on their last full-sized airliner.

Although Sarah was, in fact, his gymnastics coach and a slayer to boot, John's first instinct was still to ruffle her boyishly short hair instead of taking her seriously.

"You need to get over this need to protect me," she hissed at some point during their last argument, in some plane, however over who knew where. "You wouldn't act like this if it was Buffy."

"You said yourself that you don't have a lot of field experience," had been John's retort. "I wouldn't have to worry about Buffy."

Sarah had snorted. "That's what you think."

They'd settled into contentious silence—lulled by the dull roar and subtle vibrations of the plane in flight, and exhausted from months of non-stop training—still thoroughly at odds.

Looking past Sarah's head, John watched cloud formations move lazily below them. He knew Buffy had ostensibly sent him to Tibet to learn something she couldn't teach him: how to control his demons. When Sarah's head rolled onto his shoulder, her sun-brown skin glowing against the blankets they were both wrapped in, he was convinced that the real lesson is in patience.

* * *

They traveled the last leg of their flight in a plane that could generously be called a puddle-hopper. Since both he and Sarah survived the trip more intact than not, John was willing to be that generous. Still, there was a wry grin on his face as he held the stair-railing in an iron grip with one hand, while Sarah, following on his heels, seemed to be doing her best to crush the fingers of his other hand.

This time, the temptation was to wrap the young woman, who was shorter but stockier than Buffy, in a warm hug. Partly to make her feel better—she looked a little green around the gills—and partly to confirm that they have both made it onto solid ground alive. But after only a moment or two on the tarmac, she seemed to have made a full recovery: skipping ahead of him, hopping from foot to foot and bouncing her duffel off the back of her thighs as she searched the empty expanse of black asphalt and the bland landscape beyond.

"Looking for someone?" John asked.

"Maybe."

John rolled his eyes. "Are you sure you're here for me, or for Oz?"

Sarah's head snapped around and she shot him a dirty, narrow-eyed look. "How do you know?"

"You doodle while you talk. You've been drawing little werewolves on napkins and in margins for months."

Sarah's jaw dropped, and when she picked it up her expression was still crestfallen. "You saw that?"

John smiled, thinking this quintessential moment between an adult and teenage girl (even if she was about 20) was the most civil conversation they'd had since she'd announced that he "needed her" on the way to Prague Ruzyně International Airport. He remembered Buffy's parting words as she'd stood on tiptoe, out of her boots for the first time since he'd met her, to give him a rough hug: "Be nice…I think this is her first."

It had taken him a while to figure out what the Slayer had meant. There was no way this had been Sarah's first argument about going, and possibly staying, with John. But as the heat of their argument had cooled from hashing and rehashing, her excitement for Tibet had grown…which had seemed contradictory. Until the tarmac.

Sarah's shoulders dropped. "I can't believe how obvious I am."

"Don't feel so bad. I am a trained detective."

"Are you?" Sarah asked, wandering back to his side.

"I know that after watching me take a pounding from Buffy for months on end, it must be hard to believe I'm competent at anything—"

"You said it not me."

"—but I have in fact done all the GCPD courses. And I…" Homesickness and worry washed over him in a way that it hadn't since he'd shed his preconceptions of what training with Buffy should mean. He cleared his throat. "I have some practical experience."

Sarah didn't seem to notice, as springs returned to her feet. "Nice. Then maybe it won't be so hard to get you up to speed on the computer stuff."

"Look, Sarah—"

"Hey, um…"

They both turned at the new voice, equally chagrined for having been caught off-guard.

"…sorry I'm late. I thought you'd be inside. So that's kinda where I've been."

Sarah sucked in a breath, going completely still in an instant. _"Omigod,"_ she breathed.

The first thing John noticed was how black the man's hair was, and how it made him look paler than he probably was. Pale, short and small-boned for a man, longish face, an eclectic mix of the native dress Sarah's research had pulled up and typical Americana…if not for the extreme contrast between his skin and hair, John might not have given this man a second look on the street in Gotham. He carried himself with confidence, however. In a different setting, in different clothes, that same outwardly unassuming presence could make bigger, _lesser_, men take heed. John wondered if Oz was that sort of man.

"Uh, so I'm guessing you're the ones Buffy told me about."

Sarah glanced between John and Oz. "Don't you recognize John?"

If she'd said it differently, in a tone that was full of suspicion instead of disappointment, he would have been concerned. The urge to ruffle her hair or tuck her into his side came back, and he put it back where it belonged. Hopefully, if nothing else, they'd be in Tibet long enough to let Oz step off the pedestal Sarah had him on.

"It's been a long time," John said to help them both. "We've both changed. I know I was someone else."

Oz chuffed. "That is an accurate statement. C'mon...the truck is this way."

John will offer to let Sarah ride shotgun. Sarah will be too struck to say yes.

* * *

Sarah deflated a little, meeting Bayarmaa, but once they were all settled in and could sit down for dinner, Oz's son had charmed her right back into non-verbal giddiness. Her eyes said it all: _"I'm holding Oz's kid. How cool!"_

John smiled, refrained from ruffling Sarah's hair, and wondered when he and Oz would get started.

After dinner, Oz asked him to take a walk. John grabbed a jacket at Bay's urging, though it had been a beautifully comfortable day, and followed after Oz who was already outside. He turned to Sarah, playing with Kelden on the floor. "Be good."

"Blah blah blah. Go be deep."

Oz was only a few feet away when John closed the door behind himself. He waited for John to reach him before saying, "I've never really had my own groupie before. That used to be Devon's territory."

"Sorry?"

Oz gestured vaguely back toward the house with his head as they started to move. "Sarah."

"Oh, yeah...Sarah. She's that obvious, huh?"

Oz smiled, just a little. "I've seen it before. A lot. Devon was the one that did groupies."

"Who's Devon? You never said."

"Ah. Lead vocals in Dingoes Ate My Baby."

"Indie alternative?"

Oz grinned. "Sure."

They kept walking, John with his hands stuffed in his pockets and Oz... John glanced up and found Oz tracking something with his eyes. "What do you see?"

"Dinner. Maybe."

John scanned the horizon. "I don't see anything."

"Not surprising. Buffy tell you about me?"

He shrugged. "She and Sarah mentioned that you were a werewolf. Sarah used to make these cute little doodles during lunch." His tone spoke of his casual disbelief. "Actually," he said with a self-deprecating, and self-recriminating, smile, "Buffy presumed I knew." He looked at Oz again, meeting his eyes this time. "Sorry about that. For not being the person you were expecting. He's um, uh..."

"Dead. Yeah, I heard."

"You didn't tell Buffy."

Oz shook his head. "Didn't see much point."

"What if I was one of the bad guys?"

Oz smiled, showing too many teeth. "Bay and I've got a pretty good track record with bad guys."

"So what hasn't anyone told me?"

Oz stopped, and John stopped with him. "I'm a werewolf."

"I'm sorry, say that again?"

Oz's smile widened for a moment, before dimming to something more personable. "I'm a werewolf. So's my wife."

"What does that mean? For me and Sarah." John felt himself going on the defensive, though he tried keep his body language mild. Sarah had to know what Oz was, Buffy too, and they both trusted him. Sarah adored him.

"Watch out for hairballs and don't let Kel bite you. I'm serious about Kel. He's not a biter, but accidents happen."

John nodded. Oz turned and started walking again. John followed.

"So," Oz began, "how'd you hear the story?"

* * *

When they returned, John softly warned Sarah about Kel. She rolled her eyes and kept playing.

* * *

They went out walking through the countryside often, staying out for hours at a time. Though Sarah looked on with longing, she was never invited. John tried to keep his eyes open for interesting things to show her. Oz often quizzed him on what they saw, whether John could see what he did, and what about the flotsam and jetsam he brought back to Sarah interested him...or why he thought it would interest her.

They didn't talk about demons. John considered texting Buffy to complain.

Sarah, though she seemed to have fallen in love with Oz and Bay's son, had lost much of the humming glow John had witnessed on the tarmac only a few days ago. After dinner on the fifth night, Bay invited her out into the night.

"Where are they going?" John asked.

"Nowhere, probably. Bay wanted to go for a run and Sarah's getting restless."

An insufficient answer for John, he went after them. Not that they were hiding, out in the middle of nowhere, but he found himself tracking them anyway. A season in hell had taught him many things. This was one.

Bay's trail he lost quickly after finding her clothes. He would have expected them in a neat pile somewhere, but they seem to have been shed as she went along. Sarah's trail kept going, moving across the land unnaturally, making her easy to follow.

She was lying on her back, looking at the stars when he found her. "Aren't you afraid of something-"

She plunged a knife into the ground, next to his shoe.

"-sneaking up on you? No, I guess not. I keep forgetting that slayers are extra." He sat down cross-legged beside her, beside the knife.

Sighing, Sarah pushed up on her elbows. "You're not the only one."

* * *

The next morning, instead of heading out immediately with Oz, John asked Sarah to spar with him.

"I said I'd help Bay."

"Oh? Do what?"

She shrugged. "Stuff."

"Help me do stuff. I don't have slayer stamina and endurance. If I stay out of practice like this, I'll be useless when we get back."

She sighed—a long-suffering sound.

"Besides, aren't you supposed to be convincing me that I need a sidekick?"

Sarah colored at the remind. "Oh yeah. That. Um, so, have you given it any thought?"

"We can talk while you help put me through my paces."

"And we should go through some of the tumbles and flips and other gymnastic stuff while we're at it."

He wanted to complain that there were no mats to cushion his fall, but quickly jettisoned the thought. There were no soft places to fall in Gotham. "I'll have to see about getting some apparatus in the cave when we get back."

Sarah's eyes brightened for the first time in a week. "We?"

John frowned. "You know what I mean."

"No, I don't. Tell me more," she said, following close on his heels as he turned and walked away.

Turning a corner, John thought he caught Bay's eye but couldn't be sure.

* * *

With Sarah taking a renewed interest in his training, John and Oz didn't go out walking nearly as often. Instead, the small man would watch them and make pithy comments. It wasn't long before he and Sarah seemed to be bonding over John's shortcomings and the hazards of training a non-super.

"I mean, I can't just throw him across the room the way I would one of my sister-slayers. I'd break him."

John, who was curled up some feet away, having indeed been thrown, was grateful that she recognized the difference.

Oz, on the other hand, was nodding away. "Yeah, Buffy was always really careful with us, particularly Giles."

"Isn't he adorable! He's so old."

Oz chuckled, although John didn't think it was because he agreed.

"Well I'm old," he said, slowly getting to his feet. "How about being careful with me?"

"No way. You're going out into the field. Giles is strictly an indoor cat."

Oz grinned. "Don't let him hear you say that."

"That's something only the senior team can get away with." She shook her head. "I'd never dare."

"Why not?"

Sarah shrugged. "I'm just a mini-slayer who messes with the computers and ends up on phone duty a lot."

"Those aren't unimportant jobs, Sarah. I don't think they'd keep you in them if they didn't trust you."

"S'what I tell myself all the _TIIIIIIIIIIME!_"

John, who had snuck up behind her, lifted her off her feet and tossed her over his shoulder, sure that her slayer reflexes would save her.

They didn't. She landed hard on one side, whimpering. John swore, rushing to her. "Sarah, you okay?"

She lashed out with both feet, forcing him off his feet and onto his back. John let his momentum carry him into a roll, landing on his feet. Sarah was already standing. "Dude, don't ever fall for that again. But nice recovery!" Then she launched herself at him.

* * *

Sitting at dinner, Bay gestured to the enormous bruise, a sickly shade of green and yellow, gracing Sarah's upper arm. She pointed at John. "He did it!"

"We were sparing..."

"He did it!"

"...and I took advantage of an opportune moment."

"He did it!"

John gave in, for once, and ruffled her hair.

"Hey!"

Sitting across from them, John saw Oz and Bay exchange looks but couldn't guess what they meant. Sarah was trying to attack him back.

* * *

"So are you ready to go?" Bay asked them as she juggled her son on her hip.

John knew he was, though he'd enjoyed the two and half week stint in the mountains much more than he'd expected to. Sarah, however, was twisting on her feet. "I'm going to miss you."

Bay reached out and grasped Sarah's hand. "You can always come back to visit."

Shaking her head, Sarah said, "I don't think I will."

"Slayer dream?"

Sarah shrugged. "Something like that. It's never dreams for me, but a sense of knowing." She glanced at John, who continued to pretend to be giving them privacy.

Bay dropped Sarah's hand to smooth the girl's hair, longer now, out of her eyes. "You'll be all right. And you, Detective Blake."

"Ma'am."

"Take good care of her while she's with you."

He nodded. "Of course."

"Come Sarah. You can say goodbye to Kel at the truck."

Oz appeared in the doorway as his wife and Sarah left. "What do you think?" he asked. "Will you come back to Tibet?"

John shook his head. "Probably not. I've already been gone from Gotham far too long."

Oz nodded, then started walking towards the truck.

"One question."

Oz shrugged. "Sure."

"Why now? What made you decide I'm ready to leave? We never talked about demons or being strong or...or anything you tried to tell Bruce when you met him ten years ago."

"How do you know? Bruce needed to live and connect. So did you. Buffy thinks she doesn't have the answer to this question because she's living it every day. People aren't meant to live, to fight, to flourish alone."

"I don't understand."

Oz lips lifted in a small smile. "I'll take you back to civilization. Maybe that'll help."

Fin[ite]

* * *

**AN2:** Thanks to ShyBob on Twisting the Hellmouth for pointing out a serious plothole. Hopefully, it's all fixed now!


	6. Woven

**Title:** Woven  
**Characters:** Commissioner James Gordon, John Blake, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** The two kids, they aren't strange, not really. One of them, however, looks like John Blake, and that's very strange indeed.  
**Length:** ~2350 words

* * *

Walking down a nice street at an odd hour on a Wednesday afternoon, Commissioner James Gordon has a strange vision. A young man and younger woman in t-shirts and tank tops, long shorts and short-shorts are trying to wrangle one of those as-is couches into a doorway that's probably too narrow for it. It's a small, shabbily trendy area of Gotham usually full of students and twenty-somethings trying to make it in a city that, if it doesn't kill them, will either burn off all their dross or forge them into something new.

So the two kids, they aren't strange, not really. And because of the hour, it's not so odd that it seems to be just them and Gordon on the street, their voices loud in the relative silence.

One of them, however, looks like John Blake and that's very strange indeed.

They've made it inside the building before he can look over his shoulder again.

* * *

"Message for you, sir."

Gordon took the yellow slip as he passed. "You actually take these, Pete?"

The officer in question snorted. "My wife's trained me well."

Ignoring the familiar stab in the gut, Gordon rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, they're good at that. Find Hollinsworth. Tell him I want him in my office with that report in ten."

"Yes, sir."

He wasn't inside his office more than a minute before his phone was ringing, and while it was ringing someone was knocking on the door. Looking up, he gave Detective Montoya something that might be a smile and waved her in.

A second person—some rookie paper pusher too itchy to be on the street and too well-connected to kick off the force, whose name Gordon can never make stick for more than a moment—popped his head in the door. "Hey, Commish, you got a second to go over these?" He held up a battered folder.

Gordon held his hand up before Montoya could put the kid off. He had caught sight of case number. This was something he knew he wanted to see.

"Yeah," he said into the phone, "hold on for a sec Morris." Putting the phone against his shoulder, Gordon gestured with his chin. "Hand that over this way?" Montoya relayed the file to him as the kid stepped inside. Gordon stuffed the yellow slip into the pocket of his coat so he could take the file. Then the coat came off and the rookie was hanging it up and another detective, seeing him in, was sticking his head in the door…and the note was forgotten.

* * *

Sighing, Gordon emptied his pockets, coat then trousers, into the shallow dish he'd been using for that purpose since Elaine's mother had given them the ugly thing. They'd agreed it was atrocious, but hadn't wanted to hurt her mother's feelings—a sweet woman with questionable taste—so they'd compromised. Elaine could genuinely exclaim over how wonderful the dish was without lying, and her mother didn't feel the need to replace it with something "better."

Elaine had taken the kids and left the dish. Figured.

After a shower and a dinner of leftovers from the lunch one of the dispatchers had made for her department and had very generously shared with him, Gordon wandered back to the dish to redeem the spare change. First Jimmy and then Barbara had "created" giant penny jars, donated from whoever on the job had finished their pretzels first. They had held everything from pirate treasure, to the monopoly money that was inevitably lost on game night, to the wedding ring Ken had given to Barbie's kid sister. Those things were still in there, buried under innumerable quarters, pennies, nickels and dimes rescued from their parents' pockets. The occasional Canadian coinage had its own jar, to be used when they finally went to see the Gotham Nighthawks play the Toronto Maple Leafs. Gordon had kept up the habit, splitting his change between the two jars.

The keys stayed. The gum wrappers went. The change would take a ride. The little odd things that couldn't be identified in a glance stayed (it had been a long day). Except the yellow slip. The yellow slip got a raised eyebrow—"Oh that's right"—and a trip to the living room.

Carefully spilling the change onto a small end table, Gordon uncurled the slip and tried to decipher Pete's scrawl. Which was nearly impossible. There was a reason he generally liked to handle these things right away—he could grill Pete about what he'd written. The number, though…the number was familiar. Frowning, Gordon reached for his cell phone, which was never far away, and searched for a number. He was almost positive but didn't want to be wrong.

"Well, what do you know."

"_Blake."_

"It's not too late is it?"

"_Not at all, sir. I know the kind of hours you keep. You still on the clock?" _Gordon could hear the goodwill on the other side.

"Nah, been home for an hour or so. I would have called you earlier but, well, you know how these go."

"_That I do, sir."_ Gordon heard him take a deep breath, but didn't hear him let it out. _"It's good to hear from you, sir."_

Gordon smiled. "Likewise. You been home long, son?"

"_About a week or so. I've been gone a while and needed to settle in."_ Gordon nodded, before remembering that Blake couldn't see him. Before he could speak, however, Blake said, _"The reason I was calling, sir, is, uh, I'd like to invite you to dinner."_

Gordon's eyebrows went up. "Not tonight I hope."

Blake laughed and Gordon found himself smiling. It wasn't a sound he'd heard often during his brief connection to the young officer. He wasn't more than 30 years old, Gordon reminded himself.

"_No, sir. Whatever day works for you. My, uh, my schedule's loosened up since we last saw each other."_

Gordon huffed. "I'll say. How about I call you back in the morning. We'll figure something out."

"_Thank you, sir. That sounds good."_

"Have a good night, son."

"_You, too, sir. It's…it's good hearing your voice."_

Not sure what to do with the surprise lacing Blake's words, Gordon agrees, says good night again, and hangs up. Then he sorts the day's change.

* * *

_"Who is this? She's fun... Ugh, no, never mind. Change the song, please."_

_"No."_

_"Jo-ohn."_

_"It gets better."_

_"Ugh. Old people and their weird tastes."_

_"I'm only 31."_

_"...You're kidding me."_ Standing outside the door, Gordon could hear more shuffling, but it seemed as good a time as any to knock.

"_Wait, how old is Buffy?"_

_"About the same age. Maybe older."_

_"You're kidding me. That is not possible."_

Smiling, Gordon rapped on the door.

_"Sarah, wait for me. I'll help you with that pot."_

_"Um, hello, slayer strength."_

A curious statement that Gordon tucked into his mental coat pockets, not wanting to forget it entirely, but not wanting Blake to see curiosity written on his face when he opened the door.

_"Sarah, we talked about this. Let me help you."_

_"Ya ya ya. Fine. But hurry up before it burns something, like the counter. Or me."_

The door opened and Blake was on the other side smiling at him. He stepped aside to let Gordon in, reaching for his coat. "It's a little warm out for the trench, don't you think, sir?"

"Eh...habits. It's a convenient place to lose things."

Blake chuckled. It was still a nice sound. "So this is your place."

"Yeah. I mean, yes, sir. I know it's not much-"

"Son, you don't work for the city anymore. You can drop the 'sir'. And it's a fine place for a bachelor."

Smiling, Blake looked around as if really seeing it himself. "I guess so. Thank you, sir."

"Now, Blake-"

"Sorry..."

Both men turned at the new voice.

"But I don't think you're gonna win that one." She cut her eyes at Blake. "Sir."

Gordon groaned, good-natured. "Not you, too."

She grinned. "Gotta keep the guardian happy. Speaking of guardian, John, remember when I said come back before something burns? Yeah, well, if you ever want to get the security deposit back on this place I need your help. Now." She was already turning away when she said, "Unless you like scorch marks on your Formica!"

"Excuse me, sir." Blake frowned down at the coat in his hands. Gordon took it back from him, saying, "Go handle that before we have to order take-out."

* * *

Watching Blake and his...whoever she was to him...work around him, Gordon felt like a distant, elderly uncle seen once every few years, catered to and coddled. It was frankly weird. Especially when Blake's young Asian friend—she'd called him her "guardian"; had she meant it literally so that she was his ward, or figuratively so that he was her...sugar-daddy?—remained a mystery.

Finally they were seated around the small table, with almost too much food for their plates and drinking glasses ready to fall off the edge. "This is quite some spread for an old man."

Blake snorted.

The girl chuffed. "The only old man here is that guy," she said, pointing with her fork. "You're too cool to be old." Shrugging, she tucked into her meal.

This time Gordon snorted. "One thing, my dear."

Her eyebrows perked as she hurried to swallow. "Mmhmm? If it tastes funny, I told John the milk was off."

Gordon smiled. "No, no. Everything's fine. I just wanted to know your name."

Blake swore. The girl, still unnamed, covered her face, muttering, "My mother would kill me."

Standing, Blake introduced them. Subdued, the girl Sarah, shook his hand. "Hi," she muttered.

Gordon laughed, feeling even more like the uncle with special familial privilege when Sarah beamed at him. "So how'd you two meet?" Leaning toward, Sarah, he said, "John doesn't seem like your type."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "So not."

"She only obsesses over musicians."

"Yeah, cops don't do it for me. Too square. Not enough nail polish."

Gordon let them bicker. He'd missed bickering that didn't end in news conferences, bomb threats, and a tidal flood of emails. His kids had been pros it—probably still were. The details weren't going anywhere. He hadn't been able to help looking around the apartment, it genuinely was small, while John and Sarah had set everything up. From what he could tell, Blake had every intention of staying. There was time.

"Where do you live, Sarah?" Gordon asked. He hadn't meant to interrupt them, but it seemed important to know.

"Um, downtown, I think? I'm still not used to the city. Wayne Enterprises is putting me up. John helped me move the other day."

"Yeah, that was fun," Blake muttered, rubbing a bicep.

Gordon frowned. "You seem a little young to work for Wayne Enterprises."

"She's an intern."

"I can speak for myself," Sarah shot back. "I won an internship," she said to Gordon.

"I see. Just moved in?"

She nodded. "Last Wednesday."

"Hmm."

"Commissioner..."

Something about the way John said it and Gordon knew he was suspicious. But of what? And why? Had lying about Dent and the Batman still cost him so much? Gordon hadn't thought so when Blake had left Gotham more than a year ago and, seeing him now, sun-brown and lighter somehow, Gordon found it hard to believe.

"...tell me what's been going on in Gotham since I've been gone. There's been a lot of cleanup. The bridges are all back?"

So they talked about that for a while: what had been repaired. What had been razed and redone. What had been converted. What had been left to rot. (Blake snorted. "Because Gotham wouldn't be Gotham if something wasn't rotting in the sun.") He was surprised by how much attention Sarah gave to the conversation, which became full of the minutia and inside information only a native could care about. But she followed along as if she'd be tested on it later.

"And crime?" she asked. Her voice was a welcome change.

"Surprisingly low. Well..." He smiled at Blake's raised eyebrows. "Low for Gotham at any rate."

"The Batman?" she asked.

Gordon glanced at Blake. He put a hand on Sarah's on the table. "I'm sorry, my dear, but he died saving Gotham."

She hopped up from the table and dashed into the kitchen.

Gordon turned to Blake. "She doesn't know?"

Before he could answer, however, Sarah was slapping a newspaper on the table. She didn't sit. The headline screamed BATFAMILY SPOTTED LEAVING DIAMOND DISTRICT HEIST "First of all, you guys have a diamond district? With your history? Amazing. Second, how do you explain that?"

"Copycats."

She snorted, moving around the table and collecting plates. "They keeping crime down?"

"The Batman worked alone."

She kicked Blake's leg when he tried to get up and help. "But don't get used to it. I'm just feeling restless and need to move. I am so not cleaning these by myself. And," she directed herself to Gordon, "whose to say he hasn't picked up a sidekick or three?"

"Four."

Blake's eyes widened. "Four?"

"That's the most we've ever spotted at one time."

Sarah stopped. "You've seen them?"

Gordon shook his head. "No one ever gets close enough. They're faster, even, than he was."

Blake grunted. Sarah rolled her eyes and took the dirty dishes into the kitchen. _"So what if he's called for help while he was recuperating?"_ she called out. _"It can't be easy getting blown up."_

Gordon leaned forward, and Blake met him halfway. "She's been working on this theory for a while, hasn't she?"

John smiled. "Since Tibet."

"Is that where you met?" Gordon asked, sitting back and speaking normally.

"Prague. I got between her and her sisters and a mugger."

Sarah popped her head out of the kitchen. "Our hero!" Then she was gone.

Gordon chuckled. Blake, when he looked, was shaking his head and smiling. Gordon gestured toward the kitchen. "Looks like you picked up a kid sister."

"Trust me, I tried to give her back."

_"Ha!"_

Fin[ite]


	7. Feels Like I'm Fiddlin

**Title:** Feels Like I'm Fiddlin' (While Rome is Burning Down)  
**Characters:** John Blake, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Waiting is the hardest part.  
**Length:** ~1930 words

* * *

"According to the specs, there's an alley right there," Sarah murmured. She always murmured while working.

"_I don't see it."_ Batman, however, liked to mutter.

"Look, Bats, are you going to trust me or what? IDK, maybe Buffy made you a little too independently minded."

Batman muttered something too soft for even Sarah's sensitive hearing, but she detected the sound of movement. "You looking, Bats?"

She got a grunt as a reply. Not exactly the chattiest guy at the best of times, John Blake became one those giant Easter Island statues when the mask came on. No wonder Buffy was always calling him Officer Crab-face or Detective Poopy Pants or Captain Sour.

A swipe of Sarah's fingers across the modified mouse pad brought her onscreen map down to street level. There were cameras on this street—there were cameras all over Gotham, she'd been delighted to discover—some of which had survived the city's occupation and the neglect of subsequent rebuilding. The downside of the Dent Act's repeal was that most of the cameras were no longer being maintained. The upside was that it was more expensive to take them down and store them than it was to let rot away or become bird's nests. No one watched them anymore; with Willow's help it had been simple enough to hack and take the cameras over.

Sarah missed her sister slayers. The cave was dark and lonely when Batman was on patrol: mostly silent with insane bursts of noise that would have made little sense if not for her battle training. He'd come back, bruised, battered, physically tired and emotionally wrung out. She'd be sitting on her hands, raring to go. They'd run through the night's activities during patch up time, and she'd berate him for breaking/bruising/tearing something that was already bruised/torn/broken. Sometimes, if he'd done something particularly stupid and unnecessarily life-threatening, she'd poke one of the bruises with a sharp finger—but only because she knew she was too fast for him to catch if he retaliated. Not that he would. John was too honorable to do anything while he was still half Bat-y.

The DA cameras were really something special, and not for the first time Sarah wondered who had paid for them as she pulled up the infrared. No way Gotham's budget could have afforded them. "There's a cold spot maybe three feet to your left, about where your alley should be."

Another grunt.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "You're welcome."

At least he didn't have to go to work the next morning. Sarah said a little prayer of thanks every morning for slayer recovery times. There just wasn't enough coffee to make up for how little sleep she got after remote sidekicking, playing nurse, and then running through the gymnastics apparatus to burn off her adrenaline.

In an effort to, at least nominally, protect citizen privacy the DA cameras hadn't been able to get close enough to actually show faces. Which Sarah and Willow had agreed was utterly asinine (Willow had actually said 'asinine', prompting a swirl of giggles on both sides of phone line that had made Sarah terribly homesick), and had promptly "fixed." The city would have thanked them if they'd known.

"_Found it,"_ Batman muttered.

"Well thank God," Sarah muttered back. It had, so far, been a quiet night as things in the city went and she was ready for it to be over. She couldn't shake the feeling, though, that the relative peace was a lie. Like thinking you were in a room alone while someone was hiding in the shadows—she could feel trouble but every time she went looking for it, it closed its eyes and hid its face.

"Any bad guys?" she murmured.

"_No, but I think I may have found the entrance to their lair."_

She waited a beat. "You did not just call it their lair."

Bats chuffed, which was as close to laughter as he got while they were working.

"Dude, stop playing, get me some evidence, and let's call it a night. I wanna check some things before sunrise." Specifically his ribs, but she didn't want to say that over the air. The line was secure as far as they knew, but they hadn't had a chance to update it since John had taken the city back from the junior team Buffy had sent to protect Gotham in his stead. Unlike the GCPD, Bats the First had known how to hide things he didn't want other people to see. The last time Sarah and Willow had discussed it, Willow had assured her that an upgrade would be more than doable…as soon as she had five minutes to spare. That had been weeks ago.

"_On it."_

"Good vigilante. Don't you have homework due for tomorrow's class?"

Another grunt. John had taken up geology to justify the spelunking grant Bruce Wayne's estate had bequeathed him once its funds had been restored. Lucky him, most of his classes were online or late morning.

"Just a reminder," Sarah murmured. She looked over at the still-rings apparatus glowing dimly in a very dry corner of the cave, far from the real bats. They were John's frequent friends, but she was acquainted with them, too. Strung up rather innocuously near them was a thick, dull line of gray. Her silken friends. They required more than pure upper body strength, but a dextrous creativity that spoke to the slayer within. Most of the gymnastics apparatus in the cave were geared to men's skills, understandably, except for the silks which were unisex, and the uneven bars hiding in the back. When John had told her she should add a balance beam she'd hopped up on one end of his parallel bars, and done a cartwheeling dismount off the other.

_"I'm all set here,"_ he said suddenly.

"You sure? I can't get a scan of the interior with these cameras."

_"Yeah, I'm good. How's the street look?"_

"Disgustingly clear. Where are all the bad guys? At the Bad Guys Ball? You should have been invited."

Batman chuffed. Sarah smiled. _"I'm coming in,"_ he said.

"Di." Good.

He was encouraging her to study Thai, which no one spoke...at...home... Hmm... "Batman, you remembered to look up, right?"

He swore. Sarah ripped her headphones off just in time. Gunfire reverberated through the cave sending bats that had come home for the night into the air.

"They're firing at you?!" she shrieked, part of her realizing how stupid that sounded. "Are you kidding me?!" But she was no less incredulous. "Get out of there!"

_"Working on it."_

Hopping out of her chair, she paced, following the fight by sound alone. There were at least five, maybe more, but only three guns. After almost three months she could distinguish between type and number of guns, even when they were the same make.

So far the odds were in Batman's favor. Which was great because the only other way out was through a skylight.

There was a loud pop and a heavy grunt. He'd been shot. Center mass, probably. But not too close. She could tell: he was disarming his opponent.

One gun down, two to— Two guns down, one to go. Some smart guy kicked Bats the chest. Another heavy grunt. Maybe the shot had been closer than she'd thought.

Scuffling? Falling backwards or going backwards. Lots of swearing. There was always lots of swearing. Even Bats sometimes. If God was nearly as vengeful as people liked to think, surely Batman's fights would be over sooner from all the name-in-vain taking. Sometimes she wished He would.

Sarah jumped when someone was thrown across the room...into boxes? It was always boxes, so she was going to vote boxes. Gotham had a claustrophobic sunken road system and a monopoly on packing crates.

Anyway, one definitely down. Four to go. Maybe.

She hated waiting. She hated waiting and listening as another shot was fired—close this time; he hissed. Gunman real close. She can hear him spitting while he swore. Then he was down. Unconscious probably.

Only three to go. No guns left.

One ran: only two to go.

Someone tried breaking something over Batman's head. The high pitched whine it caused set the bats off again. Sarah wasn't too pleased either. The only saving grace was that her headphones were still lying on the console. Blowing out her eardrums once had been all she'd needed to never do that again, thanks.

More crashing. A growled, _"Where's the drop-off? Who sent you?"_

She heard the peculiar hum of arcing electricity. Huh?

Batman made a strange sound. But so did his attacker. She'd have to ask him later.

_"Who sent you?!"_

* * *

The bats were settled in for the morning when their third cousin twice removed came leaping through the waterfall. The sight never failed to thrill Sarah, watching it from the other side. It didn't hurt that the prowler purred like the world's biggest cat.

Bouncing from foot to foot she waited for Batman to emerge. Halfway across the dripping catwalk, he tossed the cowl at her. She caught it and set it down. She was waiting at the foot of the catwalk by the time he was there, finally limping, finally hurt, but still somewhere halfway between Batman and John.

Sarah offered him her shoulder and he took it. "How bad was that shot that made it through?"

"Flesh wound." Together they made it to the medical area. "Shot to the chest hurts more."

Sarah shook her head. "Your freakin' ribs. What do bad guys have against ribs? Out of the suit and then I can check you out and wrap you up and..." She shook her head. "Everything. I'm guessing the flesh wound is going to need stitches?" But she was already trying to figure out where he'd been hit.

"Sarah."

"Hmm?" She looked up at him, really seeing how his hair, in need of a trim if he was going to stick to the cop-chic he seemed to like, was plastered to his skull and the dark circles under his eyes. Mouth quirked, she said, "I'm thinking you're not getting your homework in by midnight."

He snorted. "Sun's coming up." Pulling her into a fierce and fast one-armed hug, he sighed. "So I'm going to flunk out of college. So what."

Any other night Sarah would have punched him, but it wasn't even night anymore. "Think you'll be okay for dinner with Gordon tonight?" she asked as she helped him up onto the medical bed. "I want to have it at his place. He's got more room than either of us."

"Sure. Did you check with him first?"

"Yes, _Dad_, I did. Jeez—Hey!" She ducked back as he tried to ruffle her short hair.

Grinning, he let her help him peel out of the top of the suit. "Oh, that's ugly," he murmured.

Sarah glanced up at him, but he was poking at the bruise forming below his sternum, between the tape on his sides.

Sighing heavily, he let his shoulders slump, exhaustion already rolling over him in a wave. He was all John, now. Maybe Batman would be there in the morning when he woke up, but right now...

"Thanks, Sarah. I know how hard it must be to sit behind and wait."

Rolling her eyes, Sarah pushed him upright so she could examine him. "I keep telling you and Buffy, it's not like I was in the field a whole lot before. Like this is different."

Fin[ite]


	8. Advocate

**Title:** Advocate  
**Characters:** John Blake, Selina Kyle, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Who speaks for the tre-, er, slayers?  
**Length:** ~1260 words

* * *

_"Rrrrring-ring...Ring-ring... Anybody home?"_

John left the medical area to stand in front of the cave's oversized computer screen-turned-phone. "Selina?"

_"Detective Blake! How lovely to see you again. No...really,"_ she said, openly ogling his shirtless chest. _"Were you always hiding that under those cheap leisure jackets?"_

"What? The tape holding my ribs together? I didn't want to offend anyone."

Selina huffed, but stopped staring at his chest.

"So why are you calling instead of Bruce?"

Smiling, Selina said, _"Because I know something that he doesn't."_ Her smile widened. _"Isn't that a nice switch."_

John grunted. Turning away from the computer, he said, "What can I do for you, Miss Kyle?" He was looking for his shirt, unsure where he'd dropped it in the gloomy dark.

_"Oh come on, Detective. We're both dating the same man now, don't you think we should be on a first name basis?"_

Ignoring the comment, John continued to search.

_"Oh all right. Bruce reminded me that I never told you where I left his motorcycle."_

Frowning, though she couldn't see it, John said, "I thought you took it with you."

_"To Italy? What was I going to do, put it in my overnight?"_

"And what makes you think it's still where you left it?" Finding his shirt, John winced and pulled it over his head, turning toward Selina as he did so.

_"Because Bruce has a _very_ nice setting that makes it growl if anyone unexpected gets too close."_

John shook his head. "That might work for a bunch of teenagers, but not a determined thief. Especially if it's been sitting there for a year and a half."

_"Well..."_ She twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger. _"It might also give an unauthorized user a nasty shock if they tried to sit on it."_

John sighed.

_"Why are you mad at me? It's not my delightfully innovative anti-theft feature."_

"I've been back in Gotham for almost six months, Selina, and I know for a fact that Bruce was in contact with the Watchers Council while I was training. You couldn't have said something sooner?"

She shrugged, looking serious for the first time. _"I for_got._ Did you miss the part where I said that Bruce reminded me about this? Tell me, how exactly did you become a detective?"_

John ignored the jibe. "Thank you, Selina. I appreciate the information."

She grinned. _"I'm sure you do. So are going to give it to your little sidekick? How's that working out?"_ Her eyes widened at his obvious incredulity. _"What, I can't be curious? Think of it as female solidarity, if that makes you feel better. If she's there I can just ask her for myself..."_ Selina moved left and right, trying see around John into the cave. _"No fair hiding the sidekick. Auntie Selina doesn't bite."_

John snorted. "Unless it suits you."

_"Well..."_

"And _Sarah_ is still at work."

_"That's right. Bruce gave her a little part time job. How generous. But who cares about that, I asked you how's the sidekick thing going for you. Bruce can find out about the interns if I'm interested. Ever. I want to know what it's like not working alone. Enjoying it?"_

Still wary, John shrugged. "It's all right. There's not a lot that she does that I couldn't do myself, but it does save me a few hours a night since she can analyze while I patrol."

Eyes wide and mouth open, Selina sputtered. _"Analyze? While you patrol? Why isn't this Sarah person on patrol, too? Why am I bothering to tell you the whereabouts of a bike you obviously don't need."_

"It's my bike."

_"Which you don't need if your sidekick spends her nights punching up a keyboard instead of bad guys. What kind of sidekick is this Watcher's Council producing?"_

John smirked. "Slayers."

_"Is that what you kids are calling it these days."_ Before John could protest, Selina held up a hand to stop him. _"Look, I'm not telling you how to run your hero-internship program, but if she's actual hero material and you've got her pushing paper then you're making a big mistake. You should let her do whatever it is she does." _ Waving a hand, she rolled her eyes and added, _"Within reason. Otherwise, she's going to turn on you."_

"Sarah would never-"

_"Do you know how many dead people have started sentences with that phrase? Don't be one of those idiots. Bruce would want to go back for your funeral and we still haven't gotten to the Parthenon."_

John chuckled.

_"Funny though that may sound, I'm serious about using your baby Bat to her full potential. Whatever that is. What did you say she was? A slayer?"_ Selina waved the words away. _"Anyway, about that motorcycle..."_

* * *

"Honey, I'm home," Sarah called out as she landed in the pool beyond the waterfall. "How was class? Have you made any more friends? Get any work in on the rings?" The platform and catwalk to the cave's stone floor rose beneath her. She grinned. "That never gets old."

John was waiting for her at the end of the catwalk. He pulled her into a quick, one-armed hug. "Class was fine. I do have a new stalker on the message boards, thanks. And, yes, I did get some work done on the rings...and the parallel bars."

"Nice! Upper body strength all the way! So are we going to tackle that thing with the missing college students? Too many people have disappeared for it to be coincidence."

John agreed, following Sarah with his eyes as she got settled for the long night. "Sarah...I want to step up our sparing and gymnastics training."

"Sure, okay. Tonight?" She turned to him. "I don't think you have time."

John shook his head. "You're probably right. Don't you want to know why?"

"Mmm..." Sarah's eyes rolled up toward the ceiling and the bats languishing there. "You've finally come to terms with your woeful inadequacies?"

"Ha ha."

Sarah smiled.

"I've come to terms with you being a slayer and what that means."

"Huh?"

Cracking a lopsided smile, John said, "I want you to come out on patrol with me."

"What?" Sarah shook herself. "Do you even know what you're saying? I slay things. It's in the name. People are not things—I'm not allowed to slay them."

"Good, because I don't want you to. So part of our sparing will be working on your self control and ability to moderate the amount of force you use against a given opponent."

"You're serious."

"Aren't I always?"

Squealing, Sarah bounded to him and threw her arms around John's middle. "I love you!" She squeezed once, then again, holding him for a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary. "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much! I don't even want to know why you changed your mind, just in case you change it back."

Grinning, John said, "I'm not changing my mind."

"Ha!"

"You'll need a costume, and a mask. I think I already have something that might fit you. If not I'm sure it can be modified."

Sarah nodded enthusiastically.

"The mask might be a problem. I don't have anything really suitable for you, but I'm sure I can modify something over the next-"

"Oh. Oh! I saw the perfect mask the other day. Hmm..."

John frowned. "What? What's wrong? Is it upstairs with the boys from St. Swithens?"

Sarah shook her head. "It's just that...well...it's a prototype that Mr. Fox is working on for R&D and, um... How would you like to come visit me at my job tomorrow?"

Fin[ite]


	9. You Don't Know Sarah

**Title:** You Don't Know Sarah  
**Characters:** John Blake, Lucius Fox, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Lucius's feelings about spelunking have changed.  
**Length:** ~1660 words

* * *

"Stay here," Sarah said in a distracted way as she turned the handle of Lucius Fox's office door. "Okay?"

John nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

John watched her slip through the narrowest possible opening. It was strange seeing her in a vibrant blue blouse over a full gray skirt that softened and hid the powerful lines of her body. She'd even worn hose and cute little heels. There was no way he was ever going to let her live it down. The slacks and button-down shirt he wore were as much a part of his normal wardrobe as his t-shirts and jeans. Only the shoes were an upgrade.

_"Ah, Miss Pradchaphet,"_ John heard from the other side. _"How are you today, my dear? You weren't scheduled to help me, were you?"_

_"Hello Mr. Fox. And no, sir,"_ Sarah said. _ "I'm actually on the other side of the building most of the day, but I've brought you a visitor."_

_"Oh?"_

_"I think you know him. John Blake?" _

_"I do know Detective Blake. Although..." _ John could only imagine what Lucius Fox was doing during that pause. _"I'd heard he gave up his position. Left town. Tell me, how do you know Mr. Blake?"_

_"He stepped between me and my sisters and a mugger in Prague,"_ Sarah said, repeating their cover story. Her voice faded as she walked away from the door, but was still discernible as she said, _"My sisters made him my unofficial guardian when we found out that he and I were going to end up in Gotham after we left Europe."_

_"Is that so. And do you know why Mr. Blake wants to see me?"_

_"Uh, well, you knew that the Mr. Wayne's estate bequeathed John with a spelunking grant."_

_"I'm sorry. A what?"_

_"Um..." _John could see Sarah's wide-eyed blink as she tried to figure out how to clarify what she probably thought was a straightforward statement. _"As part of Bruce Wayne's will, he gave John spelunking equipment and a grant, or I guess it's really a stipend, to pursue spelunking. Especially locally?"_

_"Is that so?" _John frowned. There was something about the way Fox had said that...

_"Yes, sir."_

_"Well then, by all means, please show him in."_

Soon Sarah was slipping through the door and beckoning John inside. "Don't worry, Mr. Fox is very nice. He's my fave, actually."

"Oh yeah?"

Opening the door for him, Sarah nodded with a leashed grin. "Go in," she murmured. "I'm right here."

Lucius Fox was standing a few feet in front of his desk , hand extended and ready to meet him. "Mr. Blake. It's good to see you again. I can honestly say it's been too long. We couldn't have made it through Bane's occupation without you."

Taking the offered hand, John smiled, surprised to find that he agreed. It had been too long. "Gotham would have pulled through without me."

"Oh, I'm sure we would. It doesn't mean you weren't an integral part in making sure that it happened...and that we all survived to see it happen."

"Thank you, sir."

Fox turned away from him, walking toward his desk. John followed, Sarah practically at his elbow. "So Miss Pradchaphet tells me you were bequeathed a...stipend from Mr. Wayne's personal assets. For spelunking. Is that right?"

John nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Spelunking was Mr. Wayne's great passion."

"So I've learned."

Fox turned to face him. "And he found a kindred spirit in you, I take it." At John's nod, he turned away and took something from his desk. "I'd hoped—" He turned around. "Well, what are the hopes of an old man? Miss Pradchaphet intimated that you were in need of some new...materials? Is that correct?"

John nodded, eying him somewhat warily. Something was disturbing Fox, but he wasn't sure what. "Yes, sir. In fact, it's Sarah who's in need of equipment."

"What?"

He felt Sarah take a step back at the snap of Fox's voice.

"You are not—" Fox caught himself. "Miss Pradchaphet, please wait for us outside. But before you go," he said, stopping her backward motion, "have you given any thought to what we spoke about last week?"

"Um..."

John glanced back to see her blushing.

"...yes, sir."

"Thoughts?"

"Um, it's a good idea?"

John frowned. "What's he talking about, Sarah?"

"Later, John. I'll see you outside."

He watched her go, only facing Fox again when she'd slipped out the door. "What was that about?"

Leaning against his desk, Fox said, "Did you know that Miss Pradchaphet has taken a year off to do this internship?" When John nodded, he said, "Did you know how brilliant she is when it comes to technology?"

"Yes. From what I understand she maintains the computers for all the interns in her building."

"No, no. More than computer savvy. I mean all forms of technology. I'd actually like to keep her on as my assistant, but she needs to finish her degree first."

John was sure there was something subtle he was supposed to be getting from all this, but he couldn't guess what it was. "What are you trying to say?"

"That perhaps you should rethink taking on a...spelunking partner. Miss Pradchaphet has a bright future ahead of her."

"I agree. I didn't want Sarah to come back with me. She insisted."

Fox frowned. "Come back with you? From where? Because it sounds like the Czech Republic isn't it."

"That's not important."

"Oh, I think it is."

Knowing that Sarah could probably hear the conversation from the hallway helped John keep his temper in check. "I can promise you that Sarah is not doing anything that she isn't ready to do, and that she knows the full consequences of her actions."

Fox pointed the device in his hand toward a wall on the other side of the room. The panel became a screen. Word and pictures began to scroll upwards. "I was curious about Miss Pradchaphet—she is a very bright girl who isn't being used to her full potential—so I did a little research." He indicated the screen. "Did you know that she is an only child? And that her family was murdered some years ago. According to reports, Sarah only narrowly escaped with her life. After that..." Fox spread his hands. "...the record is blank. As you can see."

John wandered to the enormous screen, skimming through the information as Fox spoke.

"Until she applied for and was offered an internship at Wayne Enterprises. I find all that rather curious."

So did John, but he didn't say anything.

"I did find her travel record for the Czech Republic to Tibet. You were on all the same flights."

"Yes." There was no point in hiding it.

"There's also a record of her flying from Scotland to the Czech Republic. Before the Tibetan trip. You were on that flight, too."

John turned. "What does that have to do with spelunking?"

Fox's eyes were hard. "That's what I want to know. Mr. Wayne had..." Fox turned away for a moment. Looking at John again, he said, "Mr. Wayne sacrificed everything for Gotham City, but everything he had was only himself. I won't see your 'hobby' do to her what it did to him."

John shook his head. "I didn't do this to her, Mr. Fox. I found her this way."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Believe what you want. Maybe you need to do more research." Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his slacks, John returned to Fox at his desk. "If you don't want to do this for us, that's fine. Sarah said you'd have something to help her out, but if you don't we can always modify some of the equipment Mr. Wayne left me."

"I won't allow you-"

"She trains me, Lucius. She trains me." John took a deep breath. It came out in a huff. "This isn't a matter of 'let.'"

They stared in tense silence, John's hands in his pockets hiding his twitching fingers. If Fox didn't help them, Sarah would be benched for at least another week, probably more. Selina's warning echoed every time he thought of Sarah's giddy response to his telling her that she could go out with him. If Fox didn't help them, would she go out without a mask? It was the slayer way. A suit would protect her body, however unnecessarily, but the mask would protect the people who had become important to her...the ones she talked about over dinner with Gordon.

"She was spelunking when I met her," he told Fox.

"That so?"

"Yes, sir."

Bowing his head, Fox ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Think I might be getting too old for this." He looked up and into John's eyes. "Please ask Miss Pradchaphet to come back in. I may have something in her size. I presume she'll need protective gear?"

John's hands flexed in his pockets. "I have something that will fit her. Mostly she needs to protect her face."

Fox frowned, eyeballing John's physique carefully. Raising an eyebrow at John's nearly six-foot frame, he said,"I bet I have something better. Please go get Miss Pradchaphet? Thank you."

John stuck his head out the door. "Hey. Fox wants you to come back inside."

Sarah beamed at him. "Oh good. You were taking so long and he sounded so no-way-jose, I thought he was never going to help us."

"Of course he was going to help us. Come on. Before he changes his mind." He held the door open for her and she slipped in around him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she whispered.

"Like what?"

"Like the first that you saw me. Like you weren't sure who I was."

"I'm not looking at you 'like that'."

Sarah frowned. "You so are."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm—"

"Mr. Blake. Miss Pradchaphet." They turned as Fox called their names. "If you'll both come with me."

Fin[ite]


	10. An Ordinary Morning

**Title:** An Ordinary Morning  
**Characters:** Commissioner James Gordon  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** Commissioner Gordon's day-to-day life is a bit of a revolving door.  
**Length:** ~1250 words

* * *

Walking to his office, trailed by detectives and Hollinsworth, the young man who was ostensibly his assistant, Gordon nearly caused a five-person pileup when he stopped mid-stride to do a double-take of the bullpen. "Sarah?" he called out. "Sarah!" he repeated more confidently.

But the short-haired woman he'd thought was John Blake's ward (in all but legal documents) didn't turn. Several other women did. None of them were small, sturdily built Southeast Asians with dyed red-brown hair. Shrugging, Gordon pivoted on his heel. "Sorry about that folks. Looks like I need to have all four of my eyes che—"

"Commissioner!"

Gordon stopped and turned. And waited for Sarah—it was Sarah—to maneuver her way through the busy bullpen. She was grinning when she slipped past her last human obstacle. "I'm sorry I didn't respond. My hearing's really sensitive, so in a place like this I have to block things out or I get a huge headache. I probably heard you a minute after you said my name."

"That's all right. I'm just surprised to see you here. Come with me to my office. Give me ten…" Gordon reappraised the group around him. "…thirty minutes and I can give you a ride to your apartment."

"Oh! No, sir, that's okay. I'm here to give a deposition."

"What? What happened to you?" In his peripheral vision, he could see Hollinsworth whipping out a notebook.

Sarah flinched at his tone. "Nothing! I swear. Look at me, not even my hose is ripped."

He did, really seeing her business attire for the first time though he'd distantly noted the vibrant greens of her skirt. "Then what's wrong? Did something happen to John?"

"In his geology class? God, I hope not, because it probably means there's been a rockslide. He's got a field trip today. Um…" Sarah bit her lower lip. "Maybe 'deposition' isn't the right word? You know those disappearances over the last few months? The college students?"

"Yes?"

"I think I've noticed a pattern."

Gordon exhaled loudly. "It's called a tip, Sarah. Just a tip. Please don't ever tell me you're giving a deposition unless you've been part of or witness to a crime. Okay?"

She nodded sharply. "Yes, sir."

Gordon ran his hand through his hair, aware of the many people around them, and the likelihood that there were many more ears tuned into the conversation, all trying to determine who Sarah was to him. "All right then. You finish up what you're doing. I'll…I'll see you later."

"Okay. I'm sorry I nearly gave you a coronary."

Gordon's chuckle was echoed by several others. Yeah…he'd be answering some ribald questions later. "Don't worry about it."

Confident of her safety inside the precinct, Gordon didn't watch her leave though it was tempting. A barrage of questions, comments and reports thrust into his face didn't make it practical, however. Outside his office, he turned to Detective Montoya. "Montoya, make sure you add that information Sarah's giving to... Anybody see who she was talking to?" he asked the group around them. To Montaya, he said, "You'll find out. Okay?"

Montoya nodded.

"Good. She's a smart kid and she follows this stuff. Maybe she sees something we haven't."

"You wouldn't happen to know her last name, would you, sir?"

"Pracha…Prada… I've got it written down somewhere. Come inside with me. You, too, Hollinsworth. There's still some things we need to go over. McKeever, Silva? We're on for that meeting with the Mayor at six. Let his people know. Garcia, I'm sorry. What did you need again?"

Well, that was two down at least...

"I'll be with you in just one moment, my dear," Gordon said as he walked into his office, Montoya, Garcia and Hollinsworth in tow. "Just a little busy."

Going directly to his coat, Gordon fished around for his personal cell phone. "Here, Hollinsworth. You can get Sarah's last name and phone number from the contact list, and probably do it faster than I could. She's under P," he added before the young man could ask. "Garcia, go."

Hollinsworth was faster than Gordon had expected, silently replacing the phone in the Commissioner's coat while he and Garcia went over a press release for the next morning. Gordon gestured for Montoya to stick around. "You have a copy of this I can keep?" he asked Garcia.

"You can have this one, sir."

"Good. Thanks. Tell Carter I need that report on security around Downtown right away. The anniversary's coming up and we need to start preparing now in case one of our friends decides to show up."

Garcia grunted. "What about the Batman. Or should I say Bat_men_?"

"You gonna turn in your badge and give the city back your pension because some guy's decided he wants to be Batman too?" He waited a beat. "Tell Carter I want that report."

Garcia nodded. "Yessir."

Three down... "Montoya? Good, you're still here." Gordon leaned back against his desk, carefully bracing his hands on precarious stacks of manila files. "I'd like to introduce you to Miss Buffy Summers. Miss Summers, Detective Renee Montoya."

The young woman, who had been seated when they'd all come into Gordon's office, stood and took Montoya's hand. As the two women greeted each other, Gordon said, "Miss Summers is on loan from her organization to help us with this missing persons case."

Montoya nodded. "I see."

A wry smile twisting up her features, Miss Summers shook her head. "I seriously doubt it. My organization works with government agents, but we're not part of one. We suspect that whoever's behind these cases falls under our particular jurisdiction, in which case you'll need me. But if he's your run of the mill psychopath you are welcome to him. Trust me, I'm not here for the glory and if I can make you forget my name when this is all over I will."

Montoya looked stunned. Gordon wasn't surprised. Usually outside agency involvement meant half the investigation was mired in power struggle, while the other half was tangled up in an incomprehensible web of who was in charge of what. Miss Summers was promising to avoid the first, and didn't have enough people with her to cause the second. It should be a nice change.

"How long do we have you?" Montoya asked.

Miss Summers shrugged. "Long as you need me, although I'm hoping to get this cleared up sooner than later. From what my people gather the missing persons cases have been coming closer together?"

Montoya nodded.

Gordon stood. "So you two will exchange information and get to work?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Buffy said, flashing him a less cynical smile.

"Good. Let me know if you need additional resources."

Montoya, recognizing the dismissal for what it was, cupped Buffy's elbow and led her from the room. "So where are you staying, Ms. Summers?" He heard Montoya ask conversationally.

"Please call me Buffy. And I'm actually planning to stay with one of my little sisters. I just have to let her know I'm in town. Wish..."

The door closed behind them. Gordon took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. Going around his desk to sit, he gestured for Hollinsworth to take the seat Miss Summers had vacated. "Okay, lets see if we can knock this month's numbers out before nine. I'd like to go to have dinner before tonight's loons escape Arkham."

Fin[ite]


	11. Family Ties

**Title:** Family Ties  
**Characters:** John Blake, Sarah the OC Slayer, Buffy Summers  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** "Heart says go, spleen says stay. Insides are in disarray...don't know whom to disobey." _Eating Me Alive_ by Miracles of Modern Science  
**Length:** ~2400 words

* * *

"Okay, so I'm going."

John looked up from his box of field specimens trying to catch Sarah's eyes as she checked her messenger bag. Taking in her jeans, sneakers and the graphic tee he knew was hiding under her wool pea coat, John shook his head and smiled.

She looked up. "What?"

"I always feel like you should have a cute little bow in your hair and a demure white skirt with knee socks." Sarah's horrified expression only made his smile grow.

"Never! Besides, it's December and cold!"

John laughed. "Don't stay out too late. We have rounds to make."

"Don't worry, _Dad_. Marie's our teacher this month, and she has to be at work at 7 every morning. I'll probably spend more time traveling than sitting in class."

"Good luck with that. Take a water bottle with you?" John gestured toward the kitchen with his chin.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Seriously? I've said this before, they don't want us to bring water since people have a nasty habit of leaving their crap behind. There's perfectly good water fountains there."

"Fine, fine. See if I care."

"Blah blah blah. You so do." She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned to go. "See you later!" she called over her shoulder.

Nose already back to the grindstone—actually a standard piece of tile that he was using to check streak and hardness—John waved though Sarah couldn't see it.

center***/center

Buffy's eyes went from the printout in her hand to the building in front of her and back again. Shaking her head, she slipped her phone out of her pocket and called for reinforcements. "It's Buffy. Put me through to Xander, please? Thanks."

_"Hey Buff. How's Gotham treating you? Been mugged yet? See any clowns. Please, not clowns."_

Buffy smiled. "No muggings or even attempts, and the clown population is down this week, or so I hear. Look, that address you gave me for John Blake..."

_"It hasn't been blown up or taken hostage, has it?"_

"No, no. Nothing like that. It's just, uh...I was kinda expecting something more slum-city? This is kinda swank."

_"Hmm. Carol, pull up John Blake's file and send it over here? Sorry about that Buffy. I know I should have sent you with Blake's file."_

"What for? I'm not hunting John, I'm hunting whatever's nomming on college guys who take night classes."

_"Yeah, well, he owes me."_

Buffy's eyebrows shot up. "How in the world does John Blake owe you?"

_"For starters, I've never told you his first name-"_

" 'John's not his first name?"

_"—and I let him take one of my best techs. She could talk a mile a minute and had an opinion on everything, but oh how she knew her way around a SysTray."_

"A what?"

Instead of a response, she listened to him shout a thank you to Carol who had, apparently, sent him John Blake's file. _"Let's see what we have here... Uh, it would appear that your boytoy-"_

"He is not my boytoy!"

_"Secret identity, paramilitary training, shady past _and_ a costume? Sounds like Buffy-candy to me. As I was saying,"_ Xander quickly interjected before Buffy could protest, _"it would appear that your b- that Blake moved to his current location about a month ago, and that although it is in the city, the slums have been left behind. You found Sarah's place, right?"_

"Yeah. Exactly where she left it. I guess. She was out when I tried to surprise her."

_"I told you to call ahead, Buff. No one likes a surprise visit from big sis."_

"Whatevs. I just wanted to make sure I had the right place. I'll call you if anything goes wrong?"

_"You better. When you see Sarah, tell her we miss her up in the command center. Xander out."_

"Over and." Buffy punched the END button then headed inside. After a brief incident with the doorman—he insisted on announcing her to John, totally ruining the surprise—Buffy was taking an elevator up to the third floor of John's nifty new digs. Everything was super tasteful, reserved, and really quiet. Buffy wondered how he managed any of his extracurricular activities with so many neighbors who could mark his comings and goings. Maybe she was coming through at a particularly quiet time of evening. She doubted it.

John was standing in the doorway when she finally tracked down his apartment. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello, John. Why yes, I'm well. And you? Oh _are_ you? Well, isn't that fascinating. Is Sarah in?"

He hardly colored at all as he stepped aside to let her in.

Buffy grinned. "You remember! I am far more pleased than I should be. But, seriously, where's Sarah? I ran into an intern-mate of hers and he said he hadn't seen her since the end of their end-of-day meeting."

John sat down to a low table that someone else would probably have used for coffee related things, but John was using as a desk. An oversized textbook was lying open face down, nearly buried under printouts and hand-written notes. One whole side of the former coffee table was taken up by a large tray with rocks in little square cup-box-things. Other things whose purpose Buffy couldn't guess offhand, like the small clear bottle and pure white tile, were haphazardly strewn between the rock tray and the papers.

"Well, it's Wednesday," John said as he began to clean up his things. "So Sarah's at church."

Buffy frowned. "Why? Bad things only happen on Tuesdays."

"Huh?"

"Why would Sarah need to be in a church on a Wednesday when she knows trouble prefers Tuesdays to do its troublemaking."

"Actually, in Gotham, trouble tends to prefer a long, three day weekend that starts at midnight on Thursday."

"Really?"

"But Sarah's not in a church because of crisis. Her Bible study group meets on Wednesdays."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, she started attending a few months after we got settled."

Buffy frowned. "I didn't know she went to church at all. I mean...okay, maybe not at all is pretty strong since lots of nasties seem to prefer places of worship, but like as a place to go? On purpose? Dude."

Shrugging as he worked, John said, "Surprised me, too, but it doesn't interfere with our schedule so..." He shrugged again. "I can let you into Sarah's apartment if you want."

"She's not coming back here?"

"Probably not. I need to get out of here soon, anyway. I'm actually cutting it really close, so I'm glad you stopped by. Who knew a tray full of rocks could be so engaging."

"Uh, yeah. If you say so, buster. So where are you going?"

John grinned. "Work."

"Cool! I'll just tag along with you. I've been looking forward to seeing your fancy pantsy cave ever since the team complained about how crappy it was last year. At least Sarah got your computer program fixed. Hey...what's with the staring?"

Shaking his head, John said, "You can't come with me, Buffy."

"What? Why not? You had 5 people all but living in there for almost a year."

"You know they didn't stay very long and ended up working from the satellite location when they couldn't get the cave's tech up and running."

"_My_ people, I might add," Buffy continued, almost talking over him. "Besides, I showed you my secret castle in Scotland."

Still shaking his head slowly, John said, "Part of what makes the cave work is its secrecy."

"You think we just advertise that Slayer Inc. is housed in that castle?"

"No one knows where Batman comes from or where he goes," John continued, as if Buffy hadn't spoken. "It's location has to be strictly on a need to know basis. Plus, there's a boys' home on top of it now. That's way too many innocents potentially thrown into the line of fire."

"You are _not_ saying that I'm going to actively get a bunch of kids killed."

"I'm not. What I'm saying is that every person who knows about the cave that doesn't need to makes a situation like that more likely. That house was burned to the ground once by people trying to get at Batman. It didn't matter so much when it was just some rich socialite's place, but now it's a orphanage. I can't take that risk. I won't."

"Look, Blake-"

"I agree with John."

* * *

Buffy and John swung around to find Sarah standing just in the door. She waved her fingers at Buffy before hitching her messenger bag higher up on her shoulder.

John rose and stepped around the coffee table. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you at your class?"

"One of Marie's kids had to go to the hospital with chest pains, so we broke extra early." She slowly made her way into the living room. "I guess we'll get to the daughters of Zelophehad next week. Hey, Buffy. What're you doing here? We weren't expecting you." She looked to John. "Were we expecting Buffy?"

"You weren't," Buffy answered instead, earning a frown from John. "I'm here looking for you. It was going to be a surprise. And you agree with John? What's that about?"

"I…I do. I know it sounds crazy, but I really don't think you should come to the cave," she said in a small, hesitant voice. "The fewer people who know about it, the better. And, y'know, John did a lot of DIY here, so it's pretty secure and soundproof. Except for the door, John. I was able to hear most of the conversation standing in the hallway."

John filed the information away for later as he watched Buffy gape. "You—You can't seriously think I'd blab about your secret hideout?" she said. "Hello! Castle in Scotland. And I have been secret girl for, like, ever."

Sarah seemed to shrink in on herself. "I know." John took another step toward her.

"And fellow slayer."

"I know."

"_The_ Slayer, in fact. If we can't trust each other, who can we trust?"

Buffy's ego was bruised, but it was clear that Sarah's pain was more visceral. John continued his approach as she shook her head slowly. "It's just…"

"What, are you not a slayer anymore?"

"What? No! Never that! I am a slayer, but…" She squeezed her eyes shut, bowing her head. Tears spilled out from under her lashes. "But it's not what I do anymore." She sniffed and ran a hand under her nose. Bringing her head up, she locked eyes with her sister-slayer, her jaw trembling. "Please don't make me choose between you and Gotham. Please."

Sarah's shoulders began to shake.

Her own face crumbling, Buffy drew the younger woman into a fierce hug which was desperately returned. "Oh sweetie," she said into Sarah's hair. "When my strain of foot-in-mouth disease strikes it is always highly, highly severe. And sometimes I think I don't have an ego, and yet there it is, waiting to roll back down that hill and crush me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I've been the Chosen One for a long time and I just…I forget how hard this was when I was eighteen."

"Twenty. And I love Gotham," Sarah said into her shoulder, eyes squeezed tight, "but I've missed you guys so much. I've been wanting slayers here so bad. I'm sorry about the cave. I wish you could see it."

John looked on, anger and male consternation keeping him from "rescuing" Sarah from Buffy as she sobbed against the woman's shoulder. As close as he was, he could hear their conversation clearly.

"Hey," Buffy said, smoothing Sarah's hair and drawing the young woman away from her body but not out of the circle of her arms. "Hey, this is your territory and you take protecting it seriously. Isn't that what we've been training the minis for all this time? Don't mind me just because I sometimes think I'm entitled to special privileges because I'm the oldest. Ask Dawn. She shoots me down all the time."

"I know."

"What?" Buffy frowned, but didn't say anything further as she drew Sarah close again. "Does big brother keep ice cream or chocolate or other lady-friendly snacks in the house?" She said it to Sarah, but she was eying John standing just out of reach.

He cleared his throat. "There's a pint of chocolate caramel swirl in there."

"And cookies," Sarah murmured.

"Yeah, and cookies," John agreed, begrudgingly.

Nodding, Buffy said, "Lead the way." She ignored his glare as she walked Sarah, arms now looped loosely around her waist and her head on the Slayer's shoulder, into the small kitchen.

Touching her shoulder, John asked Sarah if she was okay. She pulled away from Buffy and nodded. "Yeah. I...I'm sorry for turning into a big blubber ball all of the sudden. I know, you asked for slayers and they sent you girls."

John smiled, swiping her tear tracks with his thumb. "Don't worry about it. But I've really got to get out of here. Meroni's been getting his smuggling ring back together and there's a shipment tonight-"

"At 9! I forgot." She shifted as if to leave Buffy. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it. That's my job. You and Buffy talk, or do whatever it is girls like to do when guys aren't watching."

Sarah stopped moving. "But what about patrol?"

"It might as well wait until Lucius can find that suit he wants you to have. And you don't have to be." He ruffled her hair. She batted his hand away.

The look he leveled on the Slayer was far less friendly. "I'm sure you're here with a purpose. We'll discuss it in the morning. In the meantime, play nice."

He ignored Sarah's hissy _"John!"_ and the way she reached for his hand. He was, however, pleased when Buffy's jaw clenched reflexively.

"So..." he heard Buffy say as he left them to get his coat, "it looks like you might have a demon problem."

"Really? That could be fun! What kind?"

Fin[ite]

* * *

**AN2**: The story of the Daughters of Zelophehad can be found in the Bible, in Numbers 27:1-11. If you'd like to read it (it's pretty short) I recommend going to BibleGateway dot com, and putting the scripture verse into their search engine. If you're not familiar with the Bible, you might like to read it in The Message version.  
**AN3**: I'd originally written the last scene with Sarah confrontation to go with "You Don't Know Sarah", but it fits in with the overarching plot better when placed here. Thoughts?


	12. Hero Worship

**Title:** Hero Worship  
**Characters:** Buffy Summers, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** "Vampires are easier."  
**Length:** ~2645 words

* * *

Buffy and Sarah gave John some time to clear out before leaving his apartment after him.

"Technically," Sarah said as she pulled on a scarf she'd dug out of her messenger bag, "it's a condo."

Looking up at the midrise building behind them, Buffy frowned. "How'd big brother swing that on a cop's salary?"

"He's not even a cop anymore," Sarah reminded her. "And don't call him that."

"Call him what? Big brother?" Sarah's nod made Buffy smile. "Sweetie…he has such a big brother complex, it's ridiculous."

Sarah shrugged. "It's because he used to be a cop, and I'm short. Practically pocket-sized."

"Be that as it may…" It was true that Sarah, at about 5' even, was smaller even than Buffy though more sturdily built. "I'm getting more than 'to serve and protect' vibes coming from him. I hope you haven't tried to bring any guys home."

"Ha! No." But Sarah was flushing and trying to hide her cheeks in the folds of her scarf.

Buffy laughed. "We can dish about Mr. Wonderful over lattes, whoever he is. My treat."

"Oh! No, let me. The stipend I get from being an intern for Wayne Enterprises is, like, amazing. I'm starting to feel bad for lying to them about, y'know, being a college student and all."

Shrugging, Buffy said, "Think of it less as never being a college student and more as your real life experience put to good work!"

Sarah laughed, ducking further into the scarf.

"So, about the condo…" Buffy prompted.

"Oh, yeah, that. That grant from Mr. Wayne's estate? For spelunking? It covers college expenses if he pursues a specific degree—"

"Is that where the rocks come from?"

Sarah nodded. "And there's a housing grant. Which is, like, ridiculous. John thinks Wayne did it to keep up his dippy playboy façade even after he was dead, to protect John, but I think it was just to give him access…uh…" Sarah faltered.

"What?" Buffy glanced at the mini-slayer. "Access to what?"

"Stuff, I guess." She shrugged. "Since he doesn't have the mansion anymore, y'know. Maybe set up a remote base of operations?"

Buffy nodded. "An idea. That Wayne…always thinking." The words were flip, but Buffy said them softly, reverently—one sacrificed hero to another. "It sucks that none of us ever got to meet him before he died."

"Seriously. He was…amazing. Willow and I—"

"Oh, I know." Buffy nodded. "It's all Willow can talk about for hours after you two are done with one of your sessions." She left out the very small caveat of '_when we talk'_. It wasn't important. Besides, she still had a case of foot-in-mouth disease to make up for.

"Anyway, so John totally sat on the housing portion of the stipend—"

"Lots of stipends."

Sarah nodded, but never broke stride as she said, "—until the Wayne lawyer started hounding him about it. The first place, we totally rejected. Way too ostentatious, way too big…so not us."

"Ha! Us! He is such your big brother."

Sarah blushed, but ignored the comment. "So John found out from the guy that he could, in fact, live anywhere in Gotham so long as he used a good chunk of the housing stipend…grant…thing." She rolled her eyes. "He found this place, I approved of its ability to let us climb onto things, and we got the ball rolling. We'd probably still be trying to clear things with the bank, let alone the condo's board, if not for the Wayne lawyers. Scar-y."

Turning to walk backwards, Buffy asked, very seriously, "You ever heard of Wolfram & Hart?"

"Don't worry, I totally checked the guy out. He's got a love affair with Botox that is way too strong, but otherwise he's totally human. And not too slimy either."

"No way."

"I know, right? Apparently when you pay the really big bucks you can get the really clean lawyers."

Chuckling, Buffy righted herself and slipped an arm through Sarah's. The girl beamed up at her. "So, Xander said to tell you that they miss you at the command center."

Sarah's eyes began to fill. She sniffed. "Really?"

"Omigod, I wouldn't have told you if I knew it'd make you cry." Panicking, Buffy pulled her arm back so she could search her pockets for tissue.

"I'm sorry." Sarah swiped at her eyes with the tail of her scarf. "It's just…it's getting closer to Christmas, and I've already spent Thanksgiving away from every one, and since my family's been gone I…" She sniffed again. "I'm kinda a complete mess. Don't tell John."

"You miss not having something to kill, huh?"

"A little."

Buffy sighed, tugging Sarah's hand out of her coat pocket and through the loop of her arm. "Weird isn't it?"

Sarah nodded. "Very."

"I should have let Faith come with."

* * *

Sitting down to lattes and decadently expensive (considering the size) brownies that Sarah had insisted on paying for, Buffy explained her reason for being in Gotham. "You don't think this should wait until morning so I can hash this out with big brother present? I don't want to get in more trouble than I'm already in."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "First of all, no matter what he feels about me, John so does not have filial feelings towards you."

Buffy's eyes widened, but her smile was a pleased one.

"Second of all, he and I have already been fighting over this, like, so much. I mean, in for a penny in for a pound, right?"

"I don't know, Sarah. An argument is one thing. Actually going against what he said he wants to do-"

"Too late! Already done! I went down to the main police precinct and gave them half of all the information I had."

"Which I take it John was against doing."

Sarah nodded, breaking off a tiny corner of her brownie. "He thinks its a case for, y'know, the night watchman, but the truth is there's only one of him. Even though our resources are plain old better, there are just more cops. Period. I mean, like tonight for instance? Right now he's taking care of Meroni, but we also have a human trafficker on our radar, some funky money laundering thing, and we're both pretty convinced that one of them is linked to Meroni's smuggling."

"Or both," Buffy added, frowning.

"Exactly. But he can't be across town spying on the human traffickers or at HQ researching paper trails for stolen art goods and still stop Meroni's smuggling. Even that guy with the blue suit only goes to one place at a time. Just really fast."

Buffy shrugged. "I dunno. There was once three of me."

"Yeah, but that's different. You're...what you are."

Buffy chuckled as Sarah struggled to find a non-explicit way of calling her the Slayer. "Hey, so what's with the church thing?"

"Huh?"

"John said you were at Bible study tonight? I don't remember you doing much in the way of churchy goodness in the Czech Republic."

Sarah colored, scrunching down in her seat. "Um, it's nothing really. No, I mean..." She flushed more. "It's _something_. But it's not...big? Like, John and I never talk about it. Not really, though he comes with me sometimes on Sunday. And I did go to church in the Czech Republic. That's how I learned Czech."

"Oh." Buffy sipped her latte thoughtfully. "I just don't really have a memory of it is all."

"Well, I go _more_ now." Sarah shrugged. "I did a lot of praying all those nights sitting alone in the ca—HQ, listening to John do his rounds. I mean a lot. It was awful—it _is_ awful listening to him get in trouble and feeling like there's nothing I can do about it.

"One day I sorta decided, hey if I'm doing all this praying to make sure he's okay, maybe I should know who I'm praying to and if I'm doing it right. So I, like, looked up a couple of churches and totally lucked out with the first one I tried. I thought it'd be a class or two, or maybe one really windy discussion on souls and stuff, but the one class wasn't bad so I decided to try another. And since the teachers rotate, even when you do get a bad one you know it's only for a few weeks." Sarah squirmed in her seat, looking at Buffy through the fringe of her red-brown hair. "That answer your question?"

"I guess so."

Sarah slumped. "Oh good."

"I just think it's a little weird."

Sarah groaned.

Buffy waved a hand. "No, I mean, weird that I didn't notice before."

"I'm just a mini. You don't have to know the daily comings and goings of my life. That's, like, not your job at all. And you had John to train."

"Ugh, what a pain that was. Please don't remind me."

"Aww, that sucks, because I like to remind him all the time."

"Do you?"

Grinning, Sarah nodded. "Oh! You'll love this. So, like, based on what I've heard over the radio and from Gordon and in the news and stuff, it would seem that Batman's a lot stronger and faster than he used to be. They wonder why." She popped brownie corner in her mouth.

Buffy brightened considerably. "Is that so?"

Sarah nodded again, reaching for her latte. "How cool are you?"

"Hey, you're the one keeping up the hard work. So after this you wanna work off the extra poundage with patrol?"

Sarah beamed.

* * *

"Sorry there isn't much in the way of demonic life here in Gotham. Our humans seem to have cornered the market on evil," Sarah said apologetically as they wended their way through the Narrows.

Buffy placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sweetie, there are worse problems. Trust me."

"I guess so."

"So what's this about you going out on the town with John? Don't think I missed that."

Sarah bounced on the balls of her feet. "Lucius is making me a suit or modifying a suit so I don't have to wear John's hand-me-downs, awkward as that'd be since, y'know, height difference. And John said-"

"Uh, who's this Luscious fellow?"

"Lucius Fox. He's technically the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, but since they've got a board an' all who make the big decisions, and all these other C-letter-letter guys to deal with the daily stuff, Mr. Fox still gets to be the head of R&D and make nifty little gadgets. He's my fave exec to work for." Biting her lower lip, Sarah added, "He used to be Mr. Wayne's friend. Before he died, of course.

"Of course. So John's gonna trust you on the wild streets-"

_"Hand them over, ladies. Whatever ya got, less you wanna try breathing through the holes I'll put ya chests."_

Turning to face their would-be assailant, a heavy man who might have once had the bulk of muscles, Buffy said, "Is this what you meant by evil of the human variety?"

Dumbfounded, the guy shook his head at both women's distinct lack of fear. "Hey, this isn't a game, ladies. Gimme what ya got and I let you go. Don't, an' I take a little more than what you'd wanna give me."

Sarah had also turned. "More or less. He's kinda bottom of the barrel as these things go. This would be my territory. John doesn't want me to start at the top and maybe do something stupid. Not in the beginning."

"Like what?" Buffy asked "This?"

In two eye-blinks, the guy's gun was clattering to the pavement and Buffy's low-heeled boot was in the the joint where his shoulder and arm met.

Sarah's face dropped. "Buffy!"

"What? He's a toadstool!" She yanked on his arm for emphasis. He howled.

"_Buffy!_ You'll just attract more attention!"

Sighing, Buffy loosened her grip, though she didn't release him. "You don't have anything to tie him up with, do you?"

"Actually..." Sarah swung her messenger around, routed in it until she found a bundle of zip strips. "It's sick how cheap you can buy these for."

Buffy grunted in response, taking a pair of zip strips then dragging their would-be assailant to the nearest sturdy object: a much painted wrought iron fence that kept strangers from accidentally falling into the building's basement. Once properly trussed, she dusted off her hands and went back to Sarah. "So nothing like that."

"Not at all! I'd never hear the end of it from Jo-" She frowned. Head turning back in the direction from which they'd originally come.

Nodding, Buffy said, "I heard it, too. C'mon."

The two women dashed off down the street, leaping over obstacles as they followed the sound of a fight. Sarah tightened her messenger bag as they went.

Five streets over from where they'd started, they found the source of the sound. Four guys of various sizes and degree of apparent intellect were off the sidewalk, taking potshots at a young man. His messenger bag and its contents were strewn across the street as if it had been ripped from him and discarded. His coat was torn and his right arm was hanging unnaturally loose by his side. His face was white with fear.

Gesturing with one hand for Sarah to circle around them, Buffy swaggered forward. "Aw, you guys started without me. I am seriously disappointed. I flew all this way for a good time, and now look."

"Who're you?"

Smiling, she said, "You have no idea how nice it is to be a total mystery to someone."

And then she struck. As if that had been the cue, Sarah attacked the men she'd sidled up behind. The fight was over in moments. They weren't professionals, whoever they were, although it was obvious this was exactly the kind of thing they did for a living. They'd had no problem trying to take out Buffy and Sarah. Once they got over the shock of being attacked at all, they didn't even seem surprised to be fighting two petite women.

Buffy took zip-strip duty again as Sarah approached the victim. He'd sat down hard on the pavement once all the attention was off him, and he was still there. Sarah crouched in front of him. "Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

"How...how did you do that?"

"What? Rescue you just now? Um, self-defense courses. And, you know, two of us."

"I've taken self-defense," he said, voice breathy and full of wonder. "I could barely keep them off me."

Sarah made a mental note to come up with a better excuse next time (if there was one). "Um, well, y'know...two of us. So, uh, are you hurt anywhere? Any idea why those guys wanted you?"

He shook his head and winced. He raised his hand, the one not attached to his apparently dislocated arm, to the back of his head. "Well, my other arm is...bad. And I wasn't doing anything special, just walking home from the train after class. It's pretty far but I do it all the time. I've lived in this section of the Narrows since last year." When he brought his hand back around, it was bloody.

"You're a college student," Sarah asked, looking at his hand.

"Yeah."

Buffy returned. "Looks like someone needs to go to Emergency. Can you stand?"

"Sure."

Buffy grasped the bicep of his good arm, ignoring the blood he was getting on her when he held on as she hauled him up. Then caught him as he passed out.

She sighed. "Vampires are easier. Your cell phone wouldn't happen to be handy, would it, Sarah?"

Fin[ite]


	13. Complex

**Title:** Complex  
**Characters:** John Blake, Buffy Summers, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Buffy's right. John has a complex.  
**Length:** ~2320 words

* * *

A coil of fear knots Batman's stomach as he levers himself out of the prowler and _no Sarah._ He's halfway back inside, ready to track her down, when he remembers… She's out with the Slayer, spending quality time with the family she hasn't seen in six months. The knot tightens before releasing him. He takes off the cowl, leaves the mask, and walks across the dripping catwalk to the cave's interior.

It's strange coming back to the cave without Sarah in it. She should be there, radiating worry and exhilaration both, waiting for him at the end of the catwalk. He should be tossing his mask to her. He should be pulling her into a sharp, fierce hug that would bruise any other person. She should be berating him for a stupid risk he's taken, or continuing a conversation they've been having all night. She should be here, helping him lay Batman to rest for the night so John can get a break, too.

It's hard getting out of the suit on his own. He realizes he's never—ever—had to do it before. He hadn't gotten around to trying on the suit before he left for Scotland, and he'd brought Sarah back with him when he'd come home. Although he must have known it all along, he realizes that this is his first time working without her; it's her first night away from him and the cave.

"Must be what a parent feels like," he says, but his voice is still midnight deep. He doesn't say anything else, not even that what he feels for Sarah isn't parental, until he hears the familiar sound of a body hitting water.

When he turns, Sarah is shaking water out of her hair. "Dude, that is so different at night. A little too much fun, you know?"

"Sarah. What are you doing here?"

"And hello to you, too, Bats," she says crossing the catwalk and shedding the anorak she's worn to protect her clothes. Shaking her head, she glances back at the waterfall glittering in the moonlight beyond the cave-mouth. "I'm going to have to figure out a better way to get in here."

When she's close enough, he draws her into a fierce embrace which she returns. "Had a good night?" she asks.

He nods. "You?"

Grinning, she nods and all but dances on her toes. "We have a break in the missing persons case."

"How? Tell me."

She does, helping him out of the rest of his suit and mask as she does.

* * *

John was bowed, tired and cold when she was done, but he felt lighter. He breathed more easily.

"The kid was waking up when I left," Sarah said as she replaced the suit in its case. "But apparently this is what Buffy was here to investigate anyway, so she's probably questioning him now."

"The case that Buffy was going to tell us about in the morning?"

Sarah nodded. "Yup." She tossed him the neatly folded, and blessedly dry, sweats waiting beside the case.

"Sarah…"

"What? So we talked business. It was either that or Jeffrey and—" Her eyes went wide.

John stiffened. "Who's Jeffrey?"

"Crap." John watched her scramble for a moment, then: "Did I also mention that I spoke to the Commish yesterday and gave him half of all my theories on the case?"

"Sarah! We talked about this."

"And I disagreed! There are a heckuva a lot more cops than there are of you, or me. Or even all of Slayers, Inc. if it came down to it. John, you know this better than anybody. We should use the resources we have."

Long years of practice meant only his jaw was clenched instead of his fists, too. Not that he'd ever hit her (and if he did, not that he'd ever survive it), but he didn't want her to have even the impression that he might. John knew that sometimes perceptions were the only thing that kept you going.

He took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. "I don't have time for this tonight, Sarah. I still need to make an entry on Meroni's activities, and you have to go to work in the morning."

"How did that go?"

"Fine."

Sarah's shoulders dropped, but John was too irritated to make her feel any less guilty.

"And don't think I've forgotten about 'Jeffrey'."

She stomped her foot. _"Crap!"_

* * *

Breakfast with Buffy was nice. John didn't often eat breakfast, at least not during breakfast hours, and accordingly he rarely ate it with anyone. There had been a minor scuffle over who got the seat facing the door, until he'd found a table for them against a mirror. He'd graciously taken the seat facing it, conceding that if there was danger Buffy's reaction time was faster.

"Sarah made me do it," she'd said as soon as they were both seated.

Surprised, John had laughed. "Whether or not you actually put up a fight, I believe you. Did she tell you that we argued all the way to Tibet about whether she could come back with me?"

Buffy nodded. "She mentioned it."

"Did she tell you that she was arguing the minute you and the car dropped us off at the airport?"

"Really? No way!" She chuckled. "Well no one ever accused slayers of of being anything less than mulishly stubborn."

John smiled.

"So does this-" Buffy waved a hand to include the restaurant in general. "—mean we're five by five, as Faith would say?"

"If you're asking if I'm still mad at you for upsetting Sarah last night, then no. You two seem to have made up the way girls do. Does this mean you'll be fighting again by this afternoon?"

Coloring, Buffy said, "I hope not. I'm here for the mission and to check in on the baby slayer."

John frowned. "Is Sarah the youngest?"

"Pfft. Not by half. Just, y'know, a turn of phrase. They all look like babies."

"Ah." They paused as two large breakfast platters were set down in front of them, and a carafe of coffee for John. "Bon appetite," he said.

"You eat almost as well as a slayer," Buffy said, eying their two plates. "Except for the coffee. You do not want me near a cup of coffee."

Nodding, John said, "I will keep that in mind. Actually..."

"What?"

John was thinking of the coffee Sarah claimed she needed in every morning. "Nothing. So tell me about the young man you and Sarah rescued."

"Fits the profile Detective Montoya and Sarah both came up with separately: young, white male college student taking primarily evening classes. Falls right in the middle range of ages so far-"

"Which is?"

"Somewhere between 23 and 30 years old. Whoever this is, they definitely seem to be looking for an older student. Maybe grad or post-grads."

John nodded, indicating that she should go on.

"They also all seem to be decently fit, if not actually athletic."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the guy me and Sarah saved? Ran track. He didn't look like much when Sarah and I found him, but apparently he's a good runner."

Eyebrows raised, he said, "You've had a chance to speak to his coach?"

"It's not like it's seven in the morning, John," Buffy returned, her own eyebrows climbing. Then they fell and she was smiling. "Actually, that was Montoya. I think she went by the school last night in case Coach-guy was around. Lucky us, he was."

John nodded. "I see. Why don't we eat something before our food gets cold?"

"You don't have to tell me twice!"

They breakfasted in relative silence, exchanging small, inconsequential pleasantries as they ate. John was duly impressed by her appetite. He said so.

"But you see Sarah all the time."

"Not at mealtimes. We always miss breakfast and lunch, and usually dinner, too. When we do have dinner it's a family style thing with-" He didn't want to name the Commissioner in public. "—friends. I guess I don't pay attention to how many times she goes up for seconds."

Buffy smirked. "I bet she sneaks from the kitchen so it won't be obvious at the dinner table."

John shrugged, conceding the possibility. "Speaking of Sarah..."

"Mmhmm?"

"Don't make her cry again."

The forkful of omelet and home fries never made it off her plate.

"Not if you can help it."

"I—"

"Because very soon I'm going to do something...and I don't want her to feel like I'm making her choose."

"Do what?"

John heard the suspicion in Buffy's voice and realized he wasn't looking at her, but over her shoulder. He met her eyes, shunting the fear coiled in his gut. He cleared his throat, picked up his glass then thought better of it—setting down his utensils as well.

"I've been talking to the Wayne lawyers..."

* * *

John snagged Sarah's hand as she passed him on the way out of the cave. Fox wasn't quite ready with her suit, but with Buffy in town there was no reason not to patrol. Two women "defending themselves" would seem less strange than a single, diminutive woman beating up thugs. (Personally, John hoped that Fox would do something to cover up Sarah's distinctive red-brown hair.)

Sarah turned, giving him a lopsided smile. The two days with Buffy had been the most relaxed John had seen her since their stay in Tibet.

Had it happened then, he wondered. Maybe one of the times she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder while traveling?

"Hey! Things to do, places to go, slayers to meet and beat things up with," she said, eyes wide. "What's up?"

"When are you supposed to meet up with Buffy?"

Sarah slipped her hand from his and checked her watch. "Um...I've got half? Why? What's going on?"

He beckoned her to the desk. "Take a look at this and tell me what you think," he said, handing her an envelope.

"Can I take it with me?"

He shook his head. "No, I need you to look at this now."

Sarah shrugged, dropping her bag next to the desk. "Okay." She wandered away.

John turned back to the case files Buffy had been able to get for him from Montoya, large and all-encompassing on the cave's massive computer screen. But he wasn't reading them. The words had become meaningless an hour ago. He was battering down fear and he was waiting. That's what he was doing.

Not for long. She came jogging back, the file trembling in her hands. "What does this mean? John, what does this mean?"

He turned to face her. "It doesn't have to mean anything," he lied. He'd been telling it for a long time. "If you say no, nothing changes. If you say yes, then you have more options." He smiled.

"Are you serious?"

"Aren't I always?"

_"No!"_

John laughed.

"Do I have to choose right now?"

"Of course not." _Yes! You only ever get right now!_ She ought to know this. He was the one who had grown up with nothing and no one. She'd had it all ripped away.

"And you're not mad?"

Forehead wrinkling as he drew the mask on completely, he said, "Why would I be mad, Sarah?"

"You're only, like, making yourself my real, honest-to-God guardian and family member. And I can't make up my mind."

"I also sprung this on you."

"True." She worried her lower lip. "I just want to talk to Buffy first."

"I already did."

Sarah's demeanor instantly shifted. "You what? You talked to Buffy first?"

"Technically, I talked to the lawyers first."

Laughing, she danced forward and hit him with the paperwork still clutched desperately in her hand. Moving out of reach—he had no idea why—she said, "I want to say yes."

"Then do." _Please._

"But I'm...scared."

John frowned. "Of what?"

"What if you die like my parents? I couldn't save them."

John stood and took Sarah's hand, drawing her in for a hug. Sometimes he forgot how bright and brash her own mask was. "I won't make any promises, but I'm planning on retiring from this job, not dying in it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Pushing back from him, Sarah looked up and said, "You know you don't have to adopt me to be overprotective. You were doing just fine without the legalities."

"Sarah...I don't have any family, either. The closest I've ever had has been the staff at St. Swithens, and some of the guys on the force. I wasn't expecting to make a little sister out of you. Not a real one. But you're here and..." He took a deep breath, trying not to feel all that was breaking through the mask, trying not to hug her until he crushed her or push her aside so he could wail on something in his frustration. "I need to do more than just be an overprotective coworker who goes home and has a separate life. I need to know about the Jeffries."

She laughed. "Okay."

"So we'll talk about it in the morning?"

"Um, if by 'talk' about it you mean go to talk to the Wayne lawyers about it, sure."

He pushed her away. "Yeah?"

"Um," she smiled up at him. "Yeah."

John let out a whoop, picking Sarah up and tossing her over his shoulder. The paperwork and envelope went fluttering to the floor.

"John! John! What are you doing?"

He jogged them to the mouth of the cave...to the pool.

_"John?!"_

And jumped in.

Fin[ite]


	14. Forward Motion

**Title:** Forward Motion  
**Characters:** Sarah the OC Slayer, Batman, Oz, Buffy Summers  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** Finally, things are moving forward.  
**Length:** ~1500 words  
**Author's Note:** The Thai translations are from Google Translate. I apologize now.

* * *

_Sorry can't patrol 2nite. Still precinct w/Montoya. Late dinner/early brkfst instead? B_

Sarah read the text message again with mixed emotions, then set her phone down next to what passed for the cave computer's mouse. She'd already agreed to the dinner/breakfast that Buffy had suggested, but she'd been looking forward to going out with her sister-slayer for a third night. So far they hadn't stopped any other would-be kidnappings, at least not those related to their current case, but it had been good to be out there doing something again instead of just sitting around.

Okay, not "just sitting around". Sarah knew that she was helpful to John, and now to Gordon and the police, but she had been born to _do _stuff. Sitting still and being patient were definitely learned traits.

Batman swept past her. "I'm heading out. You'll be here when I get back?"

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously? That's a question? Stop getting your kevlars in a twist and get out there. And savor this moment!" she added as he hopped into the prowler. "After Mr. Fox fits me for my suit tomorrow it's all over!"

Bats chuckled, a vaguely unpleasant sound that, nevertheless, spoke to something equally unpleasant inside Sarah. She rubbed her hands against her jeans. "Dude…get outta here."

She swiveled around to watch the prowler make the leap through the falls and out into the wide world. "God, I love that car," she murmured as she affixed her headset. The platform began its descent into the pool as she turned around.

"_You're not getting it."_

"Aw!"

"_The Cat promises that the cycle's purr is just as nice, and…"_

"And what?" Sarah asked, only half hearing what he was saying. This part of conversation, easy banter about ultimately trivial things, was almost rote. Usually they talked about the prowler. Sometimes she mocked his suit. (Personally, Sarah hoped Mr. Fox had designed something that breathed better than the current Bat-suit did. She was thankful every night that Bats the First had seen fit to put a shower in the cave.) Each time he deftly deflected her as he became more and more focused on the real task at hand. Eventually there'd be nothing of Bats left for her as the night swallowed him up. She really had to teach him the Art of Witty Repartee.

"_Nothing,"_ he muttered.

"You're not embarrassed by whatever she told you, are you?" Sarah asked, suspicious. He'd almost sounded like John right there. They were always careful not to use real names over the comm. Willow still hadn't gotten around to upgrading the system. When Sarah had mentioned it to Buffy, she'd suggested asking Oz to do it instead. "He's as smart as, if not smarter than Wills, you know. He's actually a year ahead of us and totally flunked his senior year out of pure Oz whatevs-ness."

Sarah hadn't known that, and had sent an email to Oz and Bay as soon as they'd returned from their patrol. A quick check of her inbox showed that, thus far , there'd been no response.

Speaking of which… "Okay, okay, fine. Don't answer the question. What's on the menu for tonight?"

_"Finally got proof that Meroni's tied to the human trafficking ring-"_

"I was hoping it'd be the money laundering."

_"Me too. I'm sure I can shake down a couple of his guys for dates and times of the next shipment."_

"Anonymous tip time for the police?"

_"Yes."_

"What else?" Sarah asked as she updated that particular case file. Part of the massive computer screen was dedicated to Batman's outstanding cases (all of them at the moment), while part of it tracked his progress toward the city center on a map. There were several other programs running in the background as she concentrated on the immediate: the police scanner, a realt-time diagnostics display, perimeter security for the cave, and the program that controlled the Dent Act cameras were featured but not alone.

Together, Sarah and Batman did a run-through of his planned activities for the night. It didn't matter that nights rarely, if ever, went exactly to plan. Going through everything helped them both focus on big picture problems and uncompleted tasks.

_"I plan on talking to Gordon some time before I wrap up."_

Sarah winced. Gordon knew that the man running around in the suit wasn't his Batman, and he hadn't quite accepted him. From the way he talked about it over dinner, their conversations were terse and tension filled. Terse was par for the course. Tension was not. Sarah didn't know how John did it...being a sympathetic ear to Gordon during the early evening, and a barely tolerated compatriot at night. She wasn't looking forward to hearing his reaction to another suit, one affiliated with "this new upstart Batman".

"Um...you don't think you should start the night with a visit to the Commissioner? You know, before he's been there for 16 hours straight and is surviving on coffee and cheap chocolate bars?"

_"Can't be helped. I want to get to Meroni's guys before they have a chance to check in."_

"You're the boss."

He grunted. Sarah shrugged, not wasn't sure what he meant by it.

_"Mind if I jump in?"_

Screeching, Sarah jumped out of her seat, knocking back her chair. Bats went flying, some even swooping low enough to make her duck until she remembered that they wouldn't hit her. Then the anger rose up in her.

She'd ripped her headset off in her surprise, but now she jammed it back on her head. "Who is this and how did you get on this line?" she snarled.

_"Hmm. That's what I thought."_

"That's what you thought what? Tell me who you are right now!" She started a trace on the third line as she spoke. To think that someone had actually hacked their stuff. "Or I swear to-"

_"It's me, Sarah. Oz."_

Like an old balloon, all the fight went out of Sarah. Nearly falling over, she slumped into her chair. "What are you doing calling in on this line? _How_ are you calling into this line?"

_"First, lets do...this.. How do you like four?"_

"Um...over easy?" Oz chuckled, followed by an odd clicking sound. When Sarah brought up the self-diagnostic she saw that she was no longer attached to the primary line, but was about four lines over. So that's what he'd meant.

_"Yeah, so, I checked that phone thing you asked me about?"_

Her fingers danced over the console as she pulled up other diagnostic tools. "Uh huh."

_"And someone's piggy-backing. Not,"_ Oz added quickly, _"in a way that would led them back to your super-secret hideaway, but they could follow your conversation pretty easily."_

"Seriously?"

_"I've listened to your whole rundown for the night. Who's the Cat?"_

"Um, a burgler who left us some toys?"

_"Henh. In my day they took the toys."_

Sarah smiled. "Oh, well...she got a better one. These are her castoffs."

_"Ah."_

"So, uh, line 7 isn't bugged?"

_"Nope. Not yet. But it's got the same hole. They all do."_

Sarah sighed heavily. "Okay. Can you fix it remotely? Or talk me through it?"

_"Not really. It's got the signature of a magical piggy-back. Accessible by anyone who knows it's there now that it's been established, but still sorta beyond my range of capabilities. You should try Willow."_

"Already did! But she's too busy for us right now."

_"Ah, but that was before you knew you had a problem of the magical variety, and that Buffy is there with you tracking down bad guys."_

"So I'll get in contact with Willlow."

Sarah could hear Oz shrug when he said, _"S'what I'd do. But that's just me. And this may go without saying, but I'd avoid your main line if I were you."_

"Oh Oz! If Bayarma ever gets tired of you, I am totally in love!"

His sometimes breathy laugh was her only response and goodbye.

As suggested, Sarah shot off an email to Willow about their problem. She texted Buffy. _Some1 tapping main comm line. Maybe prsn stealing guys? Gonna try something. ~SP_

Sarah switched back to the main line. "_Pee chai_, how's it going so far?" she murmured.

"I just hit the first bridge into Gotham, _nong sao._ Meroni's shipment is to one of the seaports. ETA 15 minutes. _Rea ca fuk, phas'a thiy thami ni khna thi thanagan?_" Why were they practicing Thai?

"_Kar thdsxb thvs'di."_ Testing a theory.

Now all he had to do was go with it.

_"Okay."_

Sarah beamed. "Okay! _Chan yang peliyn hi rea chxng so." _

Telling him about the comm line change earned her a grunt, but that was typical. Their semi-decent use of Thai? That got a chair dance. As if on cue, her phone did a jig of its own as it vibrated.

Sarah unlocked it to see that a new message had come from Buffy. _I swear I'm going to kill Ethan this time._

Fin[ite]

* * *

**AN2:** With both NaNoWriMo and Yuletide around the corner, my posting schedule will be moving express. There are only 4 official stories left anyway (I've written more since the fic-a-thon), so we should be done within a week or so.


	15. Midnight City

**Title:** Midnight City  
**Characters:** Commissioner James Gordon, Batman, Buffy Summers  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Buffy's taking over this case. Gordon and Bats are just along for the ride.  
**Length:** ~1875 words  
**Author's Note:** The Thai translations are from Google Translate. I apologize now.

* * *

Gordon stooped and flicked the switch on the bat-signal. The instant darkness was almost palpable before Gotham's radiant light filled the space. He levered himself up

"Changed your mind, Commissioner?"

Gordon jumped, turning in time to see Batman detach himself from the lingering shadows.

"You know, of all the things I wish you hadn't held on to from your predecessor, _that_ is it."

"I'll wait for for a phone call next time."

Gordon's jaw tightened, though the words had been said without inflection. He'd been around for the better part of six months, this replacement Batman, and showed no sign of going anywhere but Gordon still found it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Running a hand through his hair, he said, "A 'hello' when you show up would be fine."

"Hello, Commissioner."

"And I'm not the one who turned this on. Nor did I authorize it." Gordon turned away from Batman, knowing the man would disappear on his own (never saying 'goodbye' was the other thing he wished the new Batman hadn't kept up with), and ran into Miss Summers striding purposefully across the roof.

"I had the officer turn on the signal, Commissioner Gordon. Good evening, sir," she said, extending her hand. "I'm sorry I missed you earlier. I've been holed up with Montoya all day."

"Who gave you the right?"

* * *

Half-cloaked in shadow, ready to disappear, Batman was content to observe the exchange between Buffy and the Commissioner. Quite unlike his own interactions with her, Buffy never invaded Gordon's personal space and she maintained a level tone as she reminded him that her special status as a para-government advisory put her outside his jurisdiction. Batman filed that away for later.

"To top it off, it's looking more and more like this case falls under my area of expertise. Between the body your people found today, the ramblings of that thug Batman dropped off to us earlier tonight and information I've just received from one of my contacts... This is bigger and uglier than anything you've ever faced, Commissioner."

"Looks, Miss Summers-"

"Commissioner, I know you've handled some really out there stuff. Trust me, I was sitting on the edge of my seat when that whacko took over your city and, to be honest, I really thought someone would try to call in my organization when the plant lady showed up. Go figure, she's totally human-"

Gordon's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean totally human?"

Batman wanted to caution Buffy. The wrong word choice could have Gordon trying to put her in a padded cell while he ran another search on her credentials.

She took a deep breath. "This is going to sound far-fetched, even after all the crazy you've seen over the last decade, but give me the benefit of the doubt. Please." When Gordon nodded, she beckoned to Batman. He covered his surprise with indifference, as he did most of his emotions.

"Look, I know you're over there," she said when he didn't step forward. "This way I only have to go over it once."

Gordon didn't turn to him, didn't acknowledge him at all, as Batman approached though he stiffened under his trench coat.

"I think your person behind the missing college students is a magician named Ethan Raynes."

Gordon shifted on his feet. "Let me see if I heard you right: you think a professional illusionist is kidnapping night students and disfiguring them?"

_"What?"_ Sarah asked in his ear. "What disfigurement?" Batman asked for both their benefit. The information had to be relatively new if Sarah didn't know about it.

Nodding, Buffy raised the manila envelope she'd been holding and shook it a bit. "Thought you might have missed that memo. Earlier today, some nature enthusiasts found the body of one of our missing night students about an hour outside of Gotham. The body had already begun to decompose, but there's evidence he had been kept alive while he'd been disfigured."

She handed him what he could only presume were pictures. He took the envelope and brought it to the roof access door where there was better light. Somewhere on his belt was a small device, ostensibly for observing small crystal formations and measuring their angles of refraction, etc., but he'd found a more practical use for Lucius Fox's toy.

"Thing is, Commissioner," she continued, "the guy wasn't disfigured. Or, he was but not with a scalpel."

"She's right," Batman said. "There's no sign of cutting from what I can see, although I don't know how these growths and formations on his body are possible without some sort of surgery." The noses of the victims were flattened and flared , their eyes over-large with very little white showing, and the skin had a grayish cast that wasn't related to his state of decomposition. It seemed to be textured or lightly furred.

Batman held out the modified electronic loop to Gordon...who strode forward and took it and the pictures from his hands. "So what does that mean for us, Miss Summers?" he asked, eye pressed to first one picture then another, and another.

"On its own? Not a lot except for a major case of weird—which, by the way, is also my department. Except there's also the confession of Macaroni's guy... What?"

Both men were looking at her oddly. Batman cleared his throat. "Did you mean 'Meroni'?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

They were both too polite to call her one it and let it slide.

"Anyway, so Meroni's guy blew his Miranda rights to pieces blabbering half the night after Batman scared him straight. He kept talking about a wizard they had hired to fix their problem once and for all, but how he kept screwing it up and he couldn't take it screw ups anymore. Which-" Buffy held up a hand to forestall any questions. "-again, doesn't mean much of anything on its own. I think everyone figured he meant a criminal mastermind or a great techie who turned to the Dark Side of crime when he talked about the wizard."

"But those two things together..." Gordon prompted.

"Were almost all the proof I needed. Especially when I got a chance to examine the body and talk to the attendant after forensics was done with him. My contact's information was just the icing on a cake full of nasty."

Handing Batman the loop with one hand, and Buffy the pictures with the other, Gordon said, "Great, so you have a bead on the guy you think is behind these...well I guess it's officially a homicide case now. That still doesn't explain why you're pushing the GCPD off this case. Unless you're afraid he's going to put us all in a closet and make us disappear."

Buffy's face wrinkled. "Actually...I am sorta worried about that. See, when I say that Ethan's a magician I don't mean like David Copperfield. Remember David Copperfield? He used to be so cool." She shook herself. "Sorry, not enough sleep and way too much coffee while staring at really small print have taken their toll.

"Ethan Rayne can use actual magic. It would be better for us if he couldn't, trust me, because physically? He's a weenier. My old school librarian beat him up more than once."

"So you know him," Batman said.

Buffy nodded. "Unfortunately. He tried to sick a chaos god on me once."

"He what?" both men said.

Buffy held her hands out placatingly. "Okay, here's where you have to believe me because I don't have any proof materials handy and I _really_ don't want to give you the whole spiel if I don't have to. It's like this: Magic is real. So are vampires, werewolves, demons...the whole kitty kaboodle."

"Miss Summers, if there were vampires, werewolves and demons running around Gotham City, someone would have noticed."

"I agree, sir, although they may or may not have been inclined to report it as anything more dangerous than a bunch of kids on PCP. Trust me. That said, there _aren't_ vampires, werewolves and demons running around Gotham. Apparently, your bad humans are sufficiently evil enough to fill your quota."

"And you know this because..."

"This is what my agency specializes in. We only handle evil of the supernatural variety, which was why I was hoping this would fall under your jurisdiction, but said it'd have to be the Buffy Show if it didn't. Trust me, it's not."

"Miss Summers-"

"Commissioner, look. I really don't have time to argue with you, and I have absolutely no problem going around you to get this done. As a matter of fact, that's one of the big reasons why I sent up the bat-signal. He-" She jerked her thumb in Batman's direction. "-can move at a pace you can only dream of. By the time you've gotten your paperwork all tied up, I can have Ethan Raynes tied up and out of your hair."

Batman took the envelope with its pictures, studying them again while Buffy and Gordon squabbled about who had authority, the legality of handing over a human magic-user to a non-government agency without following any of standard protocol, and the possibility of there being such a magic-user all.

"Next time we'll send Willow over and you can talk to _her_ about the possibilities of magic-users, okay?" Batman glanced up to see Buffy's arms crossed under her breasts. For the first time, he realized that she was standing outside in nothing more than a turtleneck in the frigid air. "Right now, I've got a bad guy and supreme pain in my butt to find and hog-tie, much as I'd rather put him out of our collective misery."

"Then what's he doing here in Gotham? None of this make sense, Miss Summers. I can't-"

Holding out the first picture, Batman strode toward Gordon. "It's me. Meroni hired this magician Rayne to 'fix' me. I'm their 'little problem'."

Eyebrows going up, Gordon stuffed his hands in his pockets. "While I can't say as I blame them, what makes you say that? I'm just as likely a target for this magic man."

"Look at the picture. Look at what Rayne was turning him into."

Batman was grateful to Buffy for allowing Gordon time to study the photo in his own time, without comment or prompting, or any other outward sign of impatience. "Sorry, son, I still don't see it."

"Wait! Gimme a sec...I can do this." Buffy whipped out her cell phone, a dark colored smart phone with, what Batman realized was, a stylized stake on the back and a cross charm. "New toy...just give me one... Ugh, where's someone under 30 when you need one? Ah ha! Here it is. Take a look at this, Commissioner," she said as she handed him the phone. She snagged the photo of the body from Batman. "And _now_ look at this."

"Oh my God. He's turning them into bats. What in the- ? Why?"

"Don't know, sir, but I am more than ready to find out." Buffy turned to Batman. "If we get a move on, we might be able to flush him out tonight."

_"Chan ca keinpi,"_ he heard in his ear. _I'm going, too._

Fin[ite]


	16. Rookie Magic

**Title:** Rookie Magic  
**Characters:** Sarah the OC Slayer, Buffy Summers, Batman, Ethan Raynes  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Wayne had told him to always beware his surroundings  
**Length:**~2100 words

* * *

"Are you two always like this?!" Buffy snapped, balancing a box of donuts in one hand.

John and Sarah stopped arguing long enough to bite out a "Yes!"

They'd been forced to put off the hunt for Ethan Rayne for another night when Batman reminded Buffy that his comm had been compromised. Speaking in his ear, Sarah had assured him that Willow would be able to fix it before the next night, and that she was looking for a way to reverse whatever Ethan had done to the college students. Batman had relayed the information before insisting on radio silence. Buffy and Commissioner Gordon had agreed that the time could be profitably used to pinpoint Ethan's location and perhaps even find out why he was transforming the men into bat-like creatures. Batman would see what he could learn from the street, and they'd all regroup in the morning.

With that in mind, Buffy had been at John's condo bright and early at 9am, a box of donuts in hand to get them started the right way: with sugar. Instead she'd been greeted with the muted, but still audible, sounds of verbal battle. From what she'd been able to make out, it had been going on for some time. When they finally let her in—she'd had to wait for a lull in "conversation" before either of them heard her knocking—she's jokingly asked Sarah how long they'd been going at it.

"Since last night," she'd said, arms crossed under her breasts.

Buffy had looked from one to the other. "What, seriously?"

"As a heart attack," John had said, dourly, almost in _that_ voice. "From the moment I got back from patrol."

"No," Sarah had said, voice dripping sarcasm. "I waited until the prowler's doors were open since _someone_ decided to declare radio silence."

"Weren't you the one that said our lines had been compromised and Willow hadn't had a chance to fix them yet/"

"Yeah, but—"

And they were still at it. The argument frequently spiraled off into related territories, but it never strayed far from its main point; Sarah wanted to be with them when they took down Ethan, and John insisted it was too dangerous.

Beyond frustrated—they had to have been going at it for twenty minutes, and that was just counting the time since she'd been let in—Buffy tossed the doughnut box to Sarah. Catching it, she was temporarily distracted by the box of sugary goodness. "Look!" Buffy snapped. "This is how it's going to be because, y'know what? It's my case. You're all just my lackeys."

Pointing at John, she said, "I know you've got this big brother complex and all, which I find super endearing and surprisingly hot, but that one over there? Slayer. Her born purpose for existing? Slaying evil. If a slayer wants to go out on a mission of slayage that doesn't involving killing regular humans, there is no way I'm going to stop her."

Sarah crowed around the sugary fingers jammed in her mouth. Until Buffy rounded on her. "And you! Technically Big Brother is not under my jurisdiction, same as I'm not under Gordon's. Don't make me regret pulling the slayer card. I'm leaving and you're staying. Just because he's an overprotective lug doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to him."

Suitably cowed, Sarah pulled her now-clean fingers out of her mouth. "But I can still go, right?"

Buffy and John both sighed. "Yes," Buffy said, "you can go."

Eyes hard, John approached Buffy as Sarah went bounding into the kitchen to make them all coffee to go with their sugar. "There's a reason I plan on putting Sarah on street crime when I take her out with me. Don't make us all regret your decision."

* * *

"So we're really just gonna walk right in there?" Sarah asked, breath misting in the cold night air.

Buffy nodded. "Yup."

"Cool!"

Buffy cut her eyes toward her sister-slayer, walking jauntily beside her. "You are the tiniest bit too excited about this, you know that?"

Sarah had the grace to blush. "I know. This is serious business. I saw the pictures of that guy last night," she said in the more subdued, more serious tone Buffy was familiar with from her time in the Command Center. "Do you think we might find anyone alive?"

"God, I hope so."

"And did the Commissioner take your warning seriously? About Ethan targeting Asian students next?"

Buffy nodded. "I think so." She grinned. "I would have loved to see the look on John's face when you told him that's why you guys were working on your Thai the other night."

"It was a moment for the ages," Sarah agreed, eyes-wide. "He was mad that I didn't say something sooner, but I couldn't have without alerting Ethan. Or whoever was on the line. I didn't know you'd already figured it out."

"We-ell, 'figured it out' is such a strong term."

Sarah snorted good-naturedly, twirling her wooden practice sword as if it were a heavy, katana-shaped baton. "Any word back from Willow about changing anyone we might find?"

"Yeah, and none of it good."

"Oh no."

"Oh yeah." Buffy's shoulders slumped as she explained that the young men's appearance were a result of they're becoming hosts for Mayan bat demons. It turned out that the Camazotz demons had a real affinity for their original half man/half bat shape. If they inhabited the host body for more than a few hours, they invariably transformed it into the shape they preferred. A transformation that was torturous, ultimately shredding the soul of the original person. "So if any of them have 'made it' through the bat-ing process, they're no longer playing for our team."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I hope he doesn't go looking for anyone tonight," Sarah said in a small voice.

Buffy threw an arm around the smaller woman. "Ditto."

_"You two all right down there?"_ Batman muttered in their ears. _"Or would you like some privacy."_

A half smile pulling at her lips, Buffy said, "Well, if you're offering."

He made some incomprehensible sound, halfway between a growl and an annoyed scoff. Buffy glanced at her sister-slayer. "Any idea what that sound means?"

Sarah shrugged, freeing herself from Buffy's embrace as she did. "He's not happy."

"I kinda twigged to that one, sweetie."

_"Target at twelve o'clock," _Batman warned them, ignoring their comments (which Buffy thought was admirable).

Putting a hand on Sarah's shoulder, she stopped them. John's comment from the morning had been bothering her all day. Because she'd had a bad habit of besting him at every turn for almost a year, Buffy had to remind herself that he'd come to her a fully grown police officer. A detective, even. There some things, many things even, that he understood just as well as she did.

"You ready for this?" she asked Sarah. "It's going to be different from everything you've probably done before. Ethan's an evil jerk, but he is human. We're not allowed to break him."

Sarah nodded. "I know. S'why I have a _bokken_ instead of a real sword." She spun the wooden sword in a tight circle.

"Yeah, but those things can do damage, too. I'm just saying, stay alert, stay cool...don't let his taunts or cleverer-than-thou attitude get to you."

_"Slayer, on your six."_

"What?"

"Buffy! Behind you!" Sarah grabbed Buffy's shoulders and threw them both backwards.

Buffy landed on her feet in time to see a batlike creature, complete with wings, swipe wicked looking talons through the space where her torso had been.

Sarah had rolled along the asphalt. She came up in a crouch, _bokken_ drawn. "You're sure they're not human anymore," she said as the Camazotz demon charged.

One of the Camazotz demons. More were appearing behind it. Buffy drew her sword. "Dibs!"

She charged forward, swiping at the Camazotz. It leapt out of the way, rising briefly in the air. Buffy followed it with her eyes. "Hey! No fair!"

Then something barreled into her. She elbowed it's gut. Slammed the butt of her sword into its sensitive nose. It howled and reared, preparing to strike.

A dark shape grabbed the Camazotz over Buffy, yanking it off and away from her. He pulled Buffy up.

Releasing her hand, he reached for something in his belt and threw it. An inhuman shriek pierced the air.

"What about that bat sound thing Bats the First had?" Sarah shouted.

"Only draws them to us," said Bats.

"Think we got that covered." Using her _bokken_ like a club, she smashed two Camazotz knee caps on a rising swing that nearly tore through the wing of a third.

Buffy lopped the head off another Camazotz. It's funny flat nose looked flatter than usual. She gave it a little smile. "I remember you." Then another was coming for her, talons first.

"Holy God! How many of them are there?" she heard Sarah shout.

"One for every man Rayne kidnapped," Batman said. A demon hooked its claws in the upper part of his cape. Batman threw his entire body forward, landing on the creature, spiked gauntlets in its neck.

"Well, how many was that?" Buffy asked.

A quick glance in Sarah's direction showed her spearing one through with her _bokken_, much as she would have a vampire, as it tried to jumped over her. Instead of dust, black ichor flowed down the wooden length, quickly coating her arm. "Okay. Definitely not hum-"

Sarah's back bowed in a sharp arc, red-brown hair flying away from her eyes, mouth open wide in a soundless scream. A pale arm, strange on such a cold night, came around her body, cradling her as she convulsed.

_"SARAH!"_

Ethan Rayne's head appeared, almost in slow motion, as he gently lowered Sarah's convulsing body. He grinned in Buffy's direction.

She gutted another Camazotz, fury turning the motion vicious. She could hear guttural howling off to her left.

"Don't like my little bat army, Slayer? They weren't so little before, but between the three of you... Well."

Batman tossed something small in Ethan's direction.

"No!" Buffy cried. She grabbed the first thing to hand—an arm that had lost its owner—and threw it to intercept, as Ethan ducked behind Sarah's still convulsing body.

"Oh, you don't want to do that, Batman," Ethan said, cautiously rising. "Not unless you want to hurt... What was her name? I heard someone howling it. Oh, yes. _Sarah_ was_-_" He stopped short, Buffy's legs suddenly filling his vision. "Hello, Slayer."

Buffy wrapped her fingers around Ethan's neck. "You're not the only one who can be sneaky," she said, a nasty smile on her face. Lifting him one-handed, she shook him like a dog. "What did you do to her?"

"Can't...breath...Slayer. Buffy!"

"Forgive me if I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."

"But...you've got...good...arm."

Buffy shook him again. "What did you do to Sarah!"

"Buffy," Batman said from behind. "If you kill him, we won't find out anything."

Snarling, she threw him to the ground, stepping over her sister-slayer's body—which had gone disturbingly still. With the Camazotz all dead, the night was suddenly, painfully, still. Except for the sound of Ethan Rayne trying to drag himself away from. He had one hand to his neck. He was pulling himself along with the other. Buffy trailed along.

"It's nothing serious, Slayer. Just a little Tetanus neurotoxin. Doesn't everyone enjoy a classic?"

"Buffy, I have to get her to a hospital immediately."

Buffy nodded, still watching, still following, Ethan as he tried to scoot away. "Go. I still need some answers. And I've been told that playing with your food can be fun."

* * *

Batman stopped paying attention after _Go._ Cradling Sarah to his chest, he ran.

So glad he'd brought the Batwing, despite how hard to get her in. But she was. And Gotham General stupid close in this thing. He couldn't breath. The syringe had broken when she was dropped. Couldn't think of it. Just remember it.

Couldn't breath.

John tore off the cowl, the mask, swiped at his eyes. He powered up the Batwing. "Hold on," he said. Not sure who the words were for. Wayne had told him to always beware his surroundings.

Fin[ite]

* * *

**AN**: Camazotz are an actual thing. Sort of. I had already decided what Ethan was doing to his poor victims a few stories before I got here, then came across the wikipedia page (and others) while trying to get a visual of a Bat Man, a la the Island of Dr. Moreau. Anywho, if you google "camazotz" you can find quite a bit of information and pictures.


	17. Feast of the Heart

**Title:** Feast of the Heart  
**Characters:** John Blake, Commissioner James Gordon, Buffy Summers, Sarah the OC Slayer  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Oz was wrong: connections were the last thing John needed.  
**Length:**~2175 words

* * *

John sprinted from the elevator to the nurse's station in a few strides. "I'm looking for my sister."

The nurse on staff bent toward her computer. "Her name, sir?"

"It's—"

A heavy hand on his shoulder interrupted him. "John."

He turned. "Commissioner Gordon. Have you seen her? Do you know where she is? How did you know that Sarah was here? Did you know? Was it one—"

"Whoa, whoa…slow down, son." Hand still on John's shoulder, Gordon steered him away from the nurse's station to the large picture windows in the waiting area. "I know you're worried. I am, too. That's why I'm here. But we can't go in to see her just yet. You already know she was attacked tonight. I can't give you more details than that right now, but there was…" Gordon hesitated. "There was a needle jammed into her back." At John's sharp intake, he quickly added, "They're working on her now, son. Should be done any moment."

John dragged a hand over his face, trying to hold together in spite of the adrenaline that made him feel like he was flying apart. He inhaled deeply through his nose. Letting it out, he said, "Weren't Barbara and Jimmy supposed to be visiting for the weekend?"

Gordon nodded. "There was some delay with their flight, so they won't be getting off the ground until about six tomorrow morning. How are you doing, son?"

"I don't know," John answered honestly. "This…this is not the call I was expecting to get on my way home." That lie he told glibly, but how easily it could be true. And if she got hurt after she started patrolling the night in earnest, who was going to give him the call then?

"I know, son. I know."

"Honestly?" He glanced over at Gordon. "Honestly, I just want to break something."

Gordon nodded.

John found the nearest seat and dropped into it, bending over his knees as a wave of nausea struck. "Anyone told her sister?" he asked from between his knees.

"One of them's in town?" They'd long ago explained to Gordon that Sarah and her 'sisters' were related by mutual affection, not blood.

John nodded. "The oldest."

"Sorry, son, I didn't know. I'd have had someone call her, too. Give me your phone and I'll do it."

John sat up long enough to fish it out before hunching over his knees again. He had not been expecting this. Gordon being at the hospital ahead of him? Likely. When Batman showed up in an ER with shaking and trembling comatose girl, claiming to have rescued her from an attack that included her being stuck with a needle full of an unidentified poison, you were nearly guaranteed a hospital visit from the Police Commissioner himself. But this sudden wave of sickness twisting up his guts? John had lived through worse in the system, and then again during Bane's occupation. He knew why it was happening physically—unspent adrenaline, fear, anxiety and pure fury were a noxious mix—but he couldn't wrap his head around it.

John shot up with an oath and paced the waiting area. Gordon watched him, but did nothing to stop the jerky motions. "What's Sarah's sister's name, son?"

"Buffy."

"Buffy? Not Buffy Summers?"

"Yeah, not a name I would have chosen either," he said as he stopped at the far wall and stared at the over-patterned wallpaper. Punching it would hurt, but he was positive it'd make him feel better. He used to do a lot of punching before he figured out adults didn't like it.

"How do you know Buffy, son?"

"I stepped between her, her sisters and a mugger in the Czech Republic," he repeated numbly. It was a really ugly wallpaper, too. Sarah hated this shade of pink. "Why?"

"Unless there's another Buffy Summers running around Gotham City, it looks like Sarah's sister has been consulting with the Department."

John's heart clenched. He and Buffy had already discussed this, after he'd dropped Sarah off in the ER. They had a plan and a story. "On what?"

"You know that missing persons case? The one Sarah's been following in the news. With the college students."

She really hated this shade of pink. "Oh yeah? She said she was here on business. Didn't say what."

"You wouldn't happen to know- John!"

It did hurt. A lot. And John had hit the wall hard enough to draw a nurse. But he was right. He felt better.

* * *

"I'm looking for Commissioner Gordon or Sarah Pradchaphet's room. Actually, he's probably in her room so if you could just give me that..."

John stood. "Buffy."

She turned and strode to him. "Thank God someone called you." She threw her arms around him. _"We okay?"_ she whispered in his ear.

He nodded.

Releasing him, she said, "What's the story with Sarah? Have you heard from the doctor?"

"Doctors, Miss Summers," Gordon said. "She was in surgery until a few minutes ago, but none of her doctors have come out yet. I didn't know you knew John, here."

"Saved me and the girls from a mugger. In all honesty we probably could have handled it ourselves, but it was a sweet gesture. There aren't too many white knights left." She slipped her hand into his. "Hey! What's this?" She lifted and examined the bandaged knuckles on his right hand.

John pulled away from her scrutiny. "I don't want to talk about it."

"He, uh, had a run-in with a wall," Gordon supplied, watching John walk away.

"It's an ugly wall. Sarah would hate it. Will hate it."

Eyes on John, Buffy said, "I guess I should call the rest of the gang." She turned to Gordon. "Have you heard from Bats?"

He shook his head. "Not since he dropped off Sarah. Did you get our guy?"

"Yeah. Detective Montoya has him for questioning under serious lock and key. It shouldn't be too hard to get a confession out of him. Not that you'll be able to keep him."

"Wait...what? Not keep him?"

"What are you going to charge him with, Commissioner? Kidnapping...sure why not. But what are you going to use as evidence, the decaying bodies of the Camazotz rotting in the street? Besides, you really don't have the ability to hold on to him."

"I'm sure Sarah would be willing to testify," Gordon countered.

"Assuming she even saw what hit her. Batman spotted and rescued her. Is he testifiable?"

Spinning on his heel, Gordon swore and took a step away from her. Facing Buffy again, he said, "Can he at least give us enough evidence to nail Meroni to the wall? There's a lot of families who won't be getting any closure if Meroni walks. Again."

She nodded. Sighing, Buffy ran her hands through her hair. "God, I feel so old. I could be one of those families. I've known Sarah since she was fifteen."

"You have to wonder why your magician friend attacked her. She doesn't fit the profile. Do you think he knew about her connection to you?"

"Maybe." Buffy shrugged. "Though Sarah didn't go out with us when we were working. I think it's more likely that Ethan mistook her for a guy. I mean with her coat on, from a distance and in the dark Sarah could be mistaken for a guy. The short hair. The solid build. And we guessed that his next target would be Asian. We're lucky tonight was the night Bats and I were going after him anyway."

Sighing, Gordon rubbed the back of his neck. "She's not...part of your group, is she?" he asked softly.

Buffy shook her head. "Sarah kinda fell in with us after her parents died after a series of awkward events. She doesn't have any family here, so when we left the States she came with. The internship at Wayne Enterprises was supposed to be it. Her launch-pad back into the real world."

"Hey, let's wait to hear what the doctors have to say before we count Sarah out."

John knew that everything Buffy said was for his and Sarah's benefit, to protect their secret, but it still made him sick. Unclenching his fists, he turned away from the window intent on breaking in and changing the subject. Instead, his feet were carrying him beyond Buffy and Gordon—to the man striding purposefully their way. "Doctor?"

"You're here for Ms. Pradchaphet?"

Nodding, John felt Gordon and Buffy flanking him.

"Okay. She's still in recovery. She didn't respond well to our usual course of anesthetic-"

He nodded again, unsurprised.

"—so she's still pretty heavily sedated. But the needle that was lodged in her spine has been successfully removed with little apparent nerve damage. Unfortunately, we won't know that for sure for some time. Um...who here is family?" he asked, his eyes scanning over the three of them.

John raised his hand. "I'm her bro—legal guardian. I mean, I will be once the paperwork goes through. We just filed it the other day." Why was this so hard?

"Good enough for me," the doctor said. "If you don't mind an audience."

"They're like family to us."

"Okay. So, first of all, Ms. Pradchaphet's status is serious but stable. She is extremely lucky to be alive.

"You know tetanus poisoning, right? You get it from being scratched by a rusty nail, gives you lockjaw...?" At their nod, he continued, "Untreated, it's a slow, painful death, but as you know it is treatable. It's why you get those nasty tetanus shots every few years. Ms. Pradchaphet, however, had the toxin injected directly into her spine. To be honest with you all, she should have died on the spot. I've never seen anything like it...like whoever attacked her had intended it for an elephant. The needle we removed should have been the least of our worries."

Unclenching his jaw, John said, "What's your point?"

"Ms. Pradchaphet has had serious, major nerve damage. At lower dosage, the toxin would have been counteracted by the vaccine already present in her body. The vaccine, however, is no match for the amount of poison in her system. Even though she is alive, and we believe out of danger, I can't tell you the extent of the nerve damage she has sustained. Because that's what tetanus is, a neurotoxin. Lockjaw is just its most famous symptom. I also can't tell you how much she'll recover.

"Right now, she literally can't breathe on her own and so we have her on a ventilator. When she wakes up, she'll likely be paralyzed from the neck down. After that? Who can tell. Again, under normal circumstances I could give you a prognosis, tell you what comes after this. But this is so far from normal, we'll have to keep her here under constant observation until she stabilizes."

John nodded, calmed somewhat by the doctor's words, as Buffy slipped a hand into his. Nothing he had said was very surprising—Buffy had gotten Willow on the line and the three of them had discussed possible results while he'd changed—but apparently he'd needed to hear it from a medical professional.

Gordon put a hand on his shoulder. "You all right, son?"

"I think so." To the doctor, he said, "Can I see her?"

"As soon as she wakes up from the anesthetics. Check in at the nurse's station. I'll be on duty all night, but I can't promise you where exactly I'll be."

"Thank you, Doctor-"

"Allen. Doctor Allen. And you're Detective John Blake," he said, extending a hand.

John took it. "We've met?"

"Not personally. I remember everyone who helped keep the hospital going during the occupation. We'll talk again later."

* * *

_You were wrong. Connections are the last thing I need. Blake._

Sitting in the dark, watching Sarah's chest rise and fall with the pulse of a machine as she slept, John's thumb hovered over the Send button. Was this what Oz had had in mind when he'd begun the alchemy that had knit Sarah to him? She would always have a place with the slayers. He'd always have his ties to St. Swithens and the GCPD. They would have been fine without each other. He should have never let her come with him to Gotham. Hadn't Wayne worked alone for all those years, himself the only one in danger of getting hurt? Now Sarah was paralyzed, whether permanently or not no one knew, and Buffy was promising to take over patrol until she was better.

John's erased the message and started again. _Did you mean I should let connections show me how precious life is? Too late. Blake._ Which made no sense. He liked the first one better. He cleared the new one and started typing again, blunt fingers punched hard into the tiny buttons.

_"John?"_

He was up and out of his seat in an instant, phone and recriminations abandoned.

Fin[ite]

* * *

**AN**: Tetanus poisoning is nasty business. You can look it up on Wikipedia, but you may want to only read in small sections if, like me, descriptions can make you ill. Also, there's only one more story left.


	18. Round Here

**Title:** Round Here  
**Characters:** John Blake, Sarah the OC Slayer, Buffy Summers, Barbara Gordon  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** "Round here we talk like lions but we sacrifice just like lambs." Round Here by Counting Crows  
**Length:**~2380 words

* * *

"_John?"_

John was up and out of his chair in an instant, recognizing his name despite the garbled sound. He strode to Sarah's side at the head of the bed, surrounded by machines quietly chattering in the darkened room. A phone call from Buffy had gotten her a private room. When he'd thanked her, Buffy had shrugged and smiled. "Never did get around to taking her off the insurance." If Gordon had found the statement odd, he hadn't said anything. Maybe because they were all exhausted. John had no idea what time Gordon had left. Buffy had gone about an hour later, a call from Montoya energizing her more effectively than the coffee she'd finally conceded to drinking.

John was at Sarah's side before she could start struggling with the apparatus helping her breath. Dark as the room was, he could still see the panic rising in her eyes. "Hey…hey…" he said softly, placing his hand on her forehead. "It's okay. It's okay. Just try to breathe normally. Rayne got you with a poison that's effected your lungs. If you fight the machines you'll suffocate. Okay?"

She tried to nod, only to whimper in distress.

"Don't move. Don't try to move…anything. A nurse will be here in a minute. They've got you so hooked up to machines your vitals are probably being broadcasted in New York's Time Square."

Sarah's eyes crinkled, and John smiled in return.

True to his word, a nurse appeared moments later. He stepped out of her way. Long, slender and creamy brown, Nurse Juliet Antenor looked more like a fantasy creature cast in a ballet than hospital staff. She'd been Sarah's primary nurse, thus far, and John had witnessed the gentle way in which she handled her patient. It only solidified the impression. She spoke in an accented mellow alto that rose and fell over her words as if she was singing. Every time she appeared in Sarah's room John had a hard time focusing on anything but her movements, her words, leading him to wonder exactly how sleep-deprived he was. For her part, she either didn't notice or was used to the strange vagaries of over-stressed, under-slept family.

"Ah, our patient is awake this morning."

John scrubbed his face with his hands. "Is it morning?"

"Go outside this room and have a look for yourself, Mr. Blake. This will give me time to check on my patient, hmm?"

Ignoring a sudden wave of fear, he went around the other side of the bed so that Sarah could see him. "Okay? I'm not going to be very far, and Nurse Juliet is very nice. She's been by to see you before."

"One blink no, two blinks yes, Ms. Pradchaphet," Nurse Juliet calmly advised, as Sarah began to panic in the face of such a daunting task as answering a yes/no question while paralyzed and intubated. "Three blinks for maybe or I don't know."

Sarah blinked twice, in rapid succession.

"You're sure?" John asked.

"Mr. Blake, do not put such pressure on Ms. Pradchaphet," Nurse Juliet said in gentle rebuke. "Remember that it has been a very trying time for her as well."

Taking a deep breath, he nodded. "You're right." To Sarah he said, "I'm gonna grab a coffee and check in with Buffy, then I'll be right back."

As he backed out of the narrow space on the far side of the bed, he saw her try to suck in a breath, her forehead wrinkling as she willed her body to act. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Waited a beat and closed her eyes, then opened them.

"Sarah—"

Nurse Juliet laid a long-fingered brown hand against Sarah's warmly tan skin. She stroked her hair back from her eyes. "Ms. Pradchaphet, I promise you Mr. Blake will only be a few feet away. He has been no further than the chair at the end of your bed, guarding you like someone precious all night. He needs to stretch his legs at the very least. Do you agree?"

Sarah blinked twice, rapidly.

"He will return. I promise it." Moving a little away, just outside Sarah's field of vision, Nurse Juliet nodded.

John grasped Sarah's hand as he crossed the end of the bed, though he knew she couldn't feel it.

* * *

Standing in the doorway of Sarah's room, John quietly watched her exchange with the older woman, still in her coat, who had come to visit. He'd overheard her asking for the room when he'd gone out to coordinate that evening's patrol schedules with Buffy. After nearly four weeks they had a system that made sure that Sarah was never alone, and neither was Gotham. He'd asked Buffy once if she wasn't needed somewhere else.

_"There are a hundred more just like me. Probably more than that. I swear I lost count after 2. Either way, the world will be fine. Plus, it's still a little early for an Apocalypse."_ She'd said it with a smile, so John had let it go. When she'd gone home for Christmas, he'd understood and had, in fact, been grateful to not have to fight her on it.

For Christmas he'd given Sarah her official, completed adoption certificate. For Christmas Sarah had given John her first 24 hours without seizures since Ethan Rayne's attack. Her doctors had been amazed.

The woman with Sarah stood very close, nearly over her, in a way that spoke of their familiarity. A tracheotomy performed early on meant that Sarah could now talk, albeit only in short bursts as the ventilator breathed for her, and shout if she was feeling threatened. But her voice was all brightness and smiles, though he couldn't see her face. John shifted, inadvertently drawing the woman's attention. She gave him a warm smile before turning back to Sarah.

"I'm going to be on my way. I have to check in on Chris before class tonight." Bending down, she gathered Sarah into a gentle hug, kissing her head through her hair much as a parent would. "I'm so sorry I wasn't able to visit you sooner."

"It's okay Ma—rie. I wasn't fit—for company—anyway. Not for a—while. Thanks—for coming," Sarah said in the start and stop way she had now.

Gently laying her back down, Marie said, "I'll be back soon, sweetheart."

"I know." John heard Sarah's smile when she said it and smiled, too. So this was the Marie from her church that held the short Bible classes. From their limited conversations on the subject, he knew that Sarah liked Marie and her family very much. The hit-it-and-quit-it teaching style only seemed to solidify her feelings for them. "Thank you."

Marie kissed her forehead. "No need to thank me, sweetheart."

There had been other visitors: some from the church, some of the people she worked with, nearly all the interns in her program (although not, he'd noted, Jeffrey), and some of their neighbors. Gordon was a frequent visitor, except for Christmas when he'd had a rare visit with his family. There were flowers everywhere. Every few days a fresh bouquet came without note from a local florist. Curious and disturbed, John had gone back to the florist in hopes of learning more.

The boutique owner had shrugged. _"The order was placed over the phone with one of my guys in the front. Fresh flowers every three to five days for Sarah Pradchaphet. No note needed other than her name. No end in sight until she gets out of the hospital, and then he'd call back to cancel the order."_

_"So you don't know anything about the buyer?" _

_"My guys, they took the order by phone because the guy, he was real particular about what kinds of flowers, but he'd already paid online through PayPal. They verify he's okay and deliver my money? I don't care who's doing the ordering."_

_"Thanks."_

John had been standing outside the shop, phone to his ear when the owner had run out. _"There was one thing," he said without preamble. "My guy who took the order? He said the number came up funny on the caller ID. I can't remember the country code now, but I remember it was from someplace in Europe. I've got a lot of family over there, so I know."_

John had thanked him and, walking back towards the hospital, tried to figure out how Wayne had learned about Sarah's condition.

Marie grabbed the large red thing women euphemistically liked to call a 'purse' and slung it over her shoulder. John stepped back to get out of her way. Instead she paused, half in and half out of the door. "You wouldn't happen to be Jeffrey, would you? She talks a lot about you."

Mouth quirking, John shook his head. Extending his hand, he said, "Not Jeffrey, though I'd like to meet him, too. My name's John Blake, ma'am."

"So you're John? Even better! She talks about you more than she does Jeffrey, though I would like to meet the young man."

Snorting, John could only agree.

"He hasn't been by?"

John shook his head again. "Nope. And I'm sure someone would have told me if he came while I was out."

Marie looked thoughtful. "Hmm, Sarah and I are going to have to sit down about this one when she's better. I don't like the idea of her being half in love with a young man who won't visit her in the hospital."

"If you don't, I will."

Beaming, Marie left the room.

"I—can hear just fi—ne you know," Sarah muttered. "Probably better than—you can."

Coming to stand beside her, he ruffled her hair. Sarah frowned, but it was quickly followed by a bright smile. "Isn't Marie—totally cool?"

"You say that even though she wants to end your fantasy romance with Jeffrey?"

"It's what you w—ant, too."

"Yeah, but this is different."

"Blah blah—blah."

* * *

Buffy was back in Scotland the first time it felt like a hundred pins were dancing under Sarah's shoulders and upper arms.

Doctor Allen called it a miracle.

Buffy, contacted via video-phone from the cave, had only smirked. "Doctors. What do they know? So what's on the sched for tonight, Batboy?"

(Gordon, Jimmy and Barbara had volunteered for the morning shift, though the kids were only in town for a few days.)

* * *

"So it hurts?" Barbara asked, not for the first time.

Sarah tentatively shrugged, the slight motion setting her shoulders on fire for a long moment. It was a glorious feeling. "Yeah, a little."

"But it's a good thing, right?"

"The best." Sarah flashed the girl her brightest smile.

Jimmy looked more like their father, but Sarah thought Barbara had more of Gordon's manner. She'd turn her head a certain way, or narrow her eyes, or go super still, and Sarah would see Gordon's face imposed over the fifteen year old's smooth one, still plump and round with girlhood.

"Are you sure you—don't want to go with—your dad and Jimmy—to pick up lunch?" she asked the girl.

Barbara shrugged. "My brother _likes_ the cafeteria food. He's so weird, sometimes I swear I don't know him."

Sarah chuckled, a less boisterous sound than before but clearly a laugh all the same. "S'how brothers are."

"John seems really cool."

Grinning, Sarah said, "Does—somebody have a—crush on my big bro?"

"No!" But Barbara was turning as red as her hair.

Sarah's grin broadened.

"Look, just don't tell him. I know I'm too young but that's no reason to step on my dreams."

"Mums the word." As silence began to grow between them, Sarah said, "I'm surprised you guys—wanted to visit with—me. You don't see your d—dad very often."

Barbara raised a shoulder in an indifferent gesture that Sarah recognized very well. She was about to get a watered down version of the truth, but that was okay. "Dad talks about you and John so much that you feel like family."

Sarah smiled. "Thank—you. I'm an only—child, so I try to make— family wherever I go."

Barbara flashed her a smile. Which faded suddenly.

"What's wrong? Changed—your mind about lu—lunch? Your dad will—get you something—edible."

"No just thinking...you came to Gotham for, like, your big break, right?" At Sarah's slight nod, she continued, "But now you might be permanently paralyzed. I know that doctor, Doctor Allen, is saying this is the fastest recovery he's ever seen, all things considered. What 'all things considered' does he mean, anyway?"

"He didn't say." Sarah didn't think Barbara knew that she'd been injected with the tetanus and how it should have killed her on the spot.

She laughed her breathy laugh when Barbara rolled her eyes. "Doctors think they know so much."

Sarah didn't point out that they did, in fact, know so much. It wasn't their fault 'Slayer Physiognomy' wasn't a standard med school class.

"Anyway, I was just thinking that you came to Gotham to do something big and now...now you could recover and still never walk. Or worse." Shaking her head, she muttered, "Just like Gotham."

Barbara had been in a corner of the room, small and unnoticed, when Doctor Allen had explained the current status of her body to Sarah, John and Gordon. He'd freely admitted that she was making remarkable, if not actually miraculous, progress but that it was always possible she'd never get any further than the point she was at now. _"In normal tetanus poisoning cases, full recovery takes months, about three to six. As you know, Ms. Pradchaphet, you received an extraordinarily lethal dose. I wish I could take more credit, but that you've come this far is a testament to your faith, and your will to live and thrive. I can't make any promises regarding your future recovery."_

"What will you do then?"

"Do when?" Sarah asked, dragging her mind back to the now.

Tucking stray hair behind her ear, Barbara said, "What will you do if the doctor's right and you only get this far, or you recover more but you're stuck in a wheelchair forever?"

Sarah shrugged, relishing the needle-pricks along her shoulders that threatened a white-out of pain. "Then I guess I—learn to fight—sitting down."

"That doesn't scare you?"

"It terrifies me."

[in]Fin[ite]

* * *

**Author's Note**: This is it, the last story in the series I wrote for this Summer's fic-a-day fic-a-thon over on livejournal. I hope you've enjoyed it. Once again, I must thank twistedshorts for hosting the fic-a-thon, and everyone who reviewed the original, painfully unedited, series. I wouldn't have made it as far without them.


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